Leonid Yuzefovich, “Cranes and Pygmies”

Yuzefovich’s latest novel, Cranes and Pygmies, has won Russia’s Big Book award and been nominated for the National Bestseller prize: 

The mighty ridges of Bogdo Ul, the final spur in the Hentei Range, ring Ulan Bator on the south. The mountain is considered holy, and there has been a ban on hunting, woodcutting, and erecting yurts there from time immemorial, but fifty years ago, in one of its gorges, the Economic Management Office of the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party’s Central Committee built a special hotel, the Niukht, which means "burrow" or "lair" in Mongolian. In the old days they brought delegates here for Party congresses, participants in international conferences, and closed meetings; now they let in anyone who wanted to come. In fall 2004, Shubin and his wife booked a room here. It was eight kilometers and four thousand tugriks for the taxi to the center of town. A thousand tugriks was worth a little less than a dollar. . . . Read more

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For more about the prize, see the post on Lizok’s Bookshelf: Reading ideas from Russian classic and contemporary fiction, a first-rate blog about Russian literature past and present.