What are the Russians reading?

Knizhnoe Obozrenie

“In the 1990s, Russians were still tremendously interested in politics and the history of their country. Today, the number one title on the non-fiction bestseller list is, “A simple way to a slim figure – Lose the weight for good””. The words of Alexander Nabokov, editor of the industry magazine Knizhnoe Obozrenie, are sobering. And the list continues with how to earn a lot of money, how to quit smoking, how to raise children. With this, Russia has begun to conform to average western taste, which Nabokov qualifies as an improvement: “We have crossed this threshold of the great upheavals (of the “dark ‘90s”)”. Even so, coming in at number five on the bestseller list is Mikhail Kasyanov’s book “Without Putin”. In it, the former premier accuses Vladimir Putin, the acting president, of being a putschist. Around two months ago, Kasyanov participated – along with around 700 people – in a day of remembrance for journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was murdered three years ago. Thus the thesis of political disenchantment cannot be completely right. The role of the Internet relating to freedom of opinion and the promotion of a civil society is debatable – where the number of blogs continues to grow steadily.

In the case of fiction, sentimental prose ranks first and foremost — escapism with Anna Gavalda or Stephenie Meyer. But crime novels, from the pens of Daria Dontsova or Alexandra Marinina, for example, are also very popular. And challenging literature by Vladimir Sorokin, Victor Pelevin or Lyudmila Ulitskaya is also in demand.

Alexander Nabokow, Knizhnoe Obozrenie

With a circulation of 8,000, Knizhnoe Obozrenie is one of the two leading publishing trade publications, along with Knizhnaya Industriya.

Svetlana Zorina of the industry magazine "Book Industry"/ Knizhnaya Industriya

Seventy per cent of its revenue comes from subscriptions — the rest from advertising. Knizhnoe Obozrenie is the only medium that publishes regular bestseller lists based on sales voluntarily submitted by four large bookstore chains and around 15 independent bookstores.

Unfortunately, there is no English-language source for information on the Russian book market thus far. Svetlana Zorina from the young trade newspaper competitor Knizhnaya Industriya believes that Russian literature could generally do with some more promotion abroad. To date, Russia still lacks a means of addressing foreign cultural politics like other countries have in the form of the British Council (GB) or the Goethe Institute. The government initiative “Russkiy Mir” was started in 2007 under Putin. But in the meantime, the project seems to have lost its way to some extent and to concentrate primarily on promoting the Russian language. “Russian literature does not have a big presence abroad”, according to Svetlana Zorina, and the reasons vary. For one thing, there is no focused plan of action – more than three different institutions, including Russkiy Mir, along with the Federal Agency for Press and Mass Communication, and the private London-based Academia Rossica foundation, are active in this field. Furthermore, the interest of Russian publishers in licensing books has been small thus far – one of the largest publishers, AST, recently announced that licensing would account for only around 4 per cent of its total sales. Svetlana Zorina hopes for a time when Russian publishers will invest more to promote their titles at international book fairs and, for instance, offer English-language abstracts.

I also hope for more discoveries like “Journey to Petushki” by Venedikt Erofeev — that would be simply wonderful…

Tags: Academia Rossica, Federal Agency for Press and Mass Communication, Knizhnaja Industrija, Knizhnoe Obozrenie, Russkiy Mir

Posted in Reading habits, Uncategorized