The National Bestseller Literature Award was established in 2001. In different years, many prominent Russian writers became its laureates: Victor Pelevin, Mikhail Shishkin, Dmitry Bykov, Zakhar Prilepin. In 2012, the award ceremony was held for the twelfth time.
Every year at the beginning of summer in St. Petersburg, the All-Russian Literature Award "National Bestseller" or, as it is abbreviated as "National Best", is awarded. It is given for the best novel in Russian, written during the previous calendar year. The motto of the award is the slogan "Wake up famous!", Which reflects the main goal of "National Best" - the search and opening of a wide readership of new talented books.
The selection mechanism of the main bestseller of the year takes place in three stages. Every year, the organizing committee compiles lists of well-known Russian publishers, writers and critics who nominate one worthy work in their opinion. All the books they claimed fall into the long list.
In 2012, the list of nominees included 52 people, including critics Lev Danilkin and Nikolai Alexandrov, publishers Olga Morozova and Alexander Ivanov, writers Gleb Shulpyakov and Yuri Buida. A total of 42 works were nominated.
Then the Grand Jury members select from the long list of two works they like. Each first place brings the applicant 3 points, the second - 1. Then, on the basis of simple arithmetic calculations, a short list is compiled, which in turn evaluates the Small Jury and selects the winner.
In 2012, 6 novels reached the finals: “Germans” by Alexander Terekhov, “Women of Lazarus” by Marina Stepnova, “Mines of Tsar Solomon” by Vladimir Lorchenkov, “Russian Sadism” by Vladimir Lidsky, “Francoise, or Path to the Glacier” by Sergey Nosov and “Living "Anna Starobinets.
On June 5, 2012, the National Bestseller Prize was presented in the winter garden of the Astoria Hotel. The small jury, chaired by the musician Sergei Shnurov, named the winner the novel-phantasmagria about Luzhkov’s Moscow “Germans” by Alexander Terekhov.
Russian writer A. Terekhov, after graduating from the Faculty of Journalism of Moscow State University in 1991, worked as a correspondent for Ogonyok magazine, then as editor-in-chief of the literary newspaper Present, and since 1999 he has been director general of the publishing house I Read. Alexander Terekhov is the author of several books, in 2009 he was a finalist of another prestigious literary award - "Big Book" - with the novel "Stone Bridge".
