Moscow, Dec 03: Young writer Denis Gutsko was awarded the Russian Booker Prize, one of the country's top literary distinctions, though the Booker jury chairman, former dissident Vasily Aksyonov, refused to name the laureate.
Gutsko, 36, was chosen for his latest work, entitled Without a Path or Trace to receive the $15,000 (11,000-euro) award, according to the ITAR-TASS news agency.
However, the jury was not unanimous, with the famed Aksyonov saying that he "did not think this was a sign-of-times novel, and I did not like the novel, so I refused to announce the laureate's name."
Without a Path or Trace is a story of a young man returning from the army to adapt to a new life in the throes of perestroika which left him without a home or his former country.
Gutsko was born in 1969 in Tbilisi, which he left in 1987 to move to Rostov-on-Don, where he now lives.
The Russian Booker Prize, modelled on the British award of the same name, was created in 1991.
Bureau Report
