Zakhar Prilepin: “Everywhere, even in London, everyone asks me about total dictation. From a personal file

Seminar by Z. Prilepin

I am a terrible coward and this is one of the reasons why I did not read my text at the seminar. And it would seem, well, what can Z. Prilepin advise me, what can he tell me? We write different things and in different ways.
And I’m already a grown-up “girl” to read from a stool what was written the day before.
And only now, after the seminar, I understand that this was another big mistake of mine.

Lord, how many of them I have “piled up” in my life! But you can’t take back what’s been done, alas! There will be science for me!

No, I was not afraid of criticism. I’m just very worried and read my texts with such a heart spasm that I’m simply afraid of fainting.
And I still really regret that I didn’t read my text!

Today I saw a real analysis of the text for the first time.
I understand that it was by ear and fast to the point of indecentness, but, my God, how beautiful it was!

When Zakhar Prilepin began to speak, Olga Boyarinova and I looked at each other in amazement. There was no “water” in his words at all.
The building of the first story was all dismantled brick by brick. To understand absurdities, inaccuracies, stylistic errors by ear, to note cliches and linguistic garbage - this is worth a lot!

I was amazed that Zakhar Prilepin not only listened, but heard those reading.

Have you ever listened to prose in seminars?
Well, if you studied at a literary institute or received a philological education, then you listened.
I can say for those who haven’t gone through all this, understanding prose by ear is, oh, how difficult it is. And parsing texts when the reading authors are trying to meet the deadline and muttering their text in a tongue twister is generally something unrealistic.

But I have never heard such a beautiful, intelligent and to the point analysis of the text.
It is generally difficult for a person to say unpleasant things to “his own writing brethren.” Well, unless he is a sadist and a murderer who takes pleasure in humiliating his neighbor. But Zakhar Prilepin is certainly not like that, believe me!
He really tried to help the authors.

And then we wonder why they don’t want to print or read us. And we have so much “piled up” in our fields that it’s impossible to weed enough! It’s easier for the editor to immediately throw it into the trash.
And we hope and wait!

But today, literally in two hours, everything was very beautifully and correctly laid out on the shelves.
And I think that when we get home, we need to not just clean and cut 90% of the texts, but destroy them, excuse me, to hell!
And not because they are bad, no! They are NOTHING at all! And this is even worse!
So much has been said today. It was bright, beautiful and fantastically accurate and correct.

But I didn’t want to go...
Well, what can Zakhar Prilepin tell me?
It turned out that it can!
Two hours with Z. Prilepin gave me more than all the editors, publishing houses and literary courses I had completed before.

Answer yourself, are you ready to hear the truth about your texts?
Not the admiring oohs and aahs of your family and friends, not the enthusiastic reviews of your mother and your first teacher, but an honest analysis of the text from an intelligent and tough and uncomfortable person who tells the truth.

No, no, our family and friends do not lie to us. They just love us very much. And we continue to “sleep”, lulled by their admiration and love.
Wake up and go to a seminar!

If you get upset and angry and write better, then go to such a seminar.

If you are at a crossroads, like me, and think that you need to stop writing, then also go to such a seminar.

At such a seminar you will learn your worth.
And only you can decide what to do next with all this truth.
He who has ears, let him hear!

And one more thing... I now know a little secret, how to choose texts for seminars, how and what to read in order to “shove” it into the four minutes allotted to you and not “steal” precious time from other readers, and most importantly - how to make yourself heard .
And this is very worth it!

Want to know all this? Go to seminars.

Fantastic, magnificent and “terrible” Zakhar Prilepin, thank you so much!
Thanks to Olga Boyarinova, Katerina, MGO SPR and the library 19 named after. F.M. Dostoevsky for great pleasure!

Reviews

Thank you, Natalya. for the insightful publication. I only read “The Abode” by Zakhar Prilepin. After getting acquainted with the work, I began to respect it.
Well, the fact that 90% of the written texts is ordinary rubbish is unambiguous. That’s why I’m now trying to write less, but with better quality. Yes, and age obliges us to do this.
Well, in general, write or don’t write - it’s all the same. Even the Holy Scriptures did not correct this humanity, and then where are we with our publications?
In connection with the above, I recall the lines from Omar Khayyam:

"Even the brightest minds in the world
They could not disperse the surrounding darkness.
They told us several bedtime stories -
And the wise ones went to sleep, just like us."

Sincerely,

It seems that it is true that humanity has not been corrected even by the Holy Scriptures! But perhaps it’s worth using every opportunity to educate a Human? Thanks to this desire, we read many authors, including you, God bless you with health and success!

Thank you, Sergey!
You know, write, don’t write... He who has ears will hear, and he who has eyes and the desire to read will read. He may agree or he may disagree.
But if they read us, it means someone needs us!)))
Thanks again, Sergey!
With a smile and warmth to you,

Another excellent collection of stories by Zakhar Prilepin.

As always, about life, about people, about human destinies, human actions.

Ten stories not connected by heroes, but connected by people, their vices, their virtues.

When you read, you forget about everything around you - you drink vodka with the hero, try to get drunk and understand why; and in the next story you are already the father of a family with a little meow, who almost lost his life and will never in his life, never, go anywhere at night; now you are already a priest who prays for everyone, because all people are foolish children, your beloved children...

- Policeman! Bitch! - Verkhovsky cursed. - Where have you been! You couldn't wake me up earlier! Stupid brute! They'll recruit stupid bastards! He sees that the man is sleeping! Is it really impossible to guess that he needs to be woken up? What are they even doing?

I really got on my nerves, I really liked the story “The First Cemetery”, which I can’t even describe in words – anyway, Zakhar Prilepin wrote it better, more truthfully, tougher and better.

Life is arranged in such a way that you - or rather, your invisible home in this world - gradually begins to be overgrown with the graves of your peers.

Those who were a little older or a little younger than you.

At first, guests are rare, and you are surprised at every new cross.

They say that later there will be so many of them that you won’t even go there to look for everyone you knew: you’ll get tired of being surprised.

And when there are only a few of them, well, you can take a look. The hill is still warm, the earth has not settled. A little foliage on freshly dug up soil - let it be foliage.

For some reason this has never happened in winter before; there was always some kind of foliage circling underfoot.

What can you say about life? Everything and nothing, no matter what words we speak, but we cannot describe life, there are no such words or, on the contrary, there are too many of them, but maybe only one is needed? Breathe, love, laugh? Or do I breathe and cry because I breathe? I live, I can’t breathe? Because someone no longer lives or breathes, but I live? Who knows what it takes to describe life? Prilepin does this quite well...

The kid was killed in one formidable city near the Caucasus mountains: he was walking through the market - choosing something to eat there, either fish or fruit - he was shot in the back of the head, point-blank.

He was at war for the first week. He never shot here even at the local sky.

He had neither a wife nor children. I don’t know anything that the Kid has ever done something wrong with his life.

He was not the first and not the last to die there, but I always remember him: that year I was four years older than him, and now I am twenty.

Then I was his older brother, and now I am his father.

Reading Zakhar Prilepin, there is hope that Russian literature will continue to live and develop, continue to change and change the reader.

In Kyiv, a guest from Russia spoke about how he came to Ukraine with fake documents and why he couldn’t write novels about love.

Zakhar (real name Evgeniy) came to us to participate in the sixth International Book Fair. By the way, the writer might not have gotten to Kyiv: he had problems with documents at the border.

They bought me a ticket in the name of Evgeniy Valerievich Prilepin, and I am Evgeniy Nikolaevich. I show you my passport. And my first page is torn off - I travel a lot, and my passport is worn out. To make it even more convincing, I show the border guards my books - there is my photograph on the back. And on the book it is written that I am not Evgeniy, and Zakhar is a pseudonym. In general, I spent more than an hour sorting things out at the border. As a result, they let me through - they saw that I was traveling for the day and that I had a return ticket.

ABOUT THE FIRST JOURNALISTIC WORK

I was 22 years old when I decided to go work in the riot police. Two years later I became a squad commander, and then the war in Chechnya began, and I also took part in some operations. Then I got tired of it, and I moved to Nizhny Novgorod and began working as an editor of the city newspaper. It was a crazy time. The newspaper was published for the older generation, and I began to allow articles of nationalist, right, and left movements to be published on its pages. One journalist in our newspaper dealt with the topic of personal relationships and wrote about the relationship between people and animals. I come to work one morning and see a huge spread with a photo of a man and a dog making love. In general, this work amused me for three years. And then I decided to write a novel.

ABOUT HOW I WROTE THE FIRST NOVEL

Initially, I wanted to write a novel about love. But as soon as I started writing it, I realized that my knowledge about love was not enough for an entire novel. And I thought: okay, I’ll write a little about love, and a little about Chechnya, and it will turn out well.

I started writing and realized that I couldn’t write about love at all. That’s why I wrote a novel entirely about Chechnya.

ABOUT THE BENEFITS OF WRITING

I am happy to reap the benefits of unexpected fame. I've already traveled half the world. And then, you know, this is a very good way to buy tangerines for children. And I have a big family: three children, a wife, a dog - a St. Bernard, so I have to earn money.

They say about me that I am a scoundrel, that I stole someone else's bread - after all, I write columns in three different magazines, and also a program on Internet television.

ABOUT THE CRITICISM

Which movement do critics classify my books as? I don't know, honestly, if I thought about it I would go crazy. I am a person who says basic things. In terms of intelligence, modern Russian literature lags far behind the Silver Age, for example.

ABOUT THE MEETING WITH PUTIN

We, young writers, were invited to the residence of President Putin in Novoogarevo in 2006. It so happened that I was seated directly opposite Vladimir Vladimirovich. The guests were treated to tea and pies, but I never tried them because I was embarrassed. But in vain, they say, the pies were very tasty.

FROM PERSONAL MATTER

Zakhar PRILEPIN, 35 years old. Published since 2003. Author of the books “Pathology”, “Sin” (National Bestseller Award 2008), “Sankya”, “I Came from Russia”. The writer himself does not identify himself with any movement, but critics consider him a realist. In his novels he repeatedly raises the issue of the Chechen War, in which he participated. Zakhar Prilepin's books are included in the mandatory or recommended syllabus and exam questions of five Russian universities. The writer's works have been translated into eleven languages.

Lives in Nizhny Novgorod.

How to become a writer? Step by step guide.

“Write Fast, Edit Zealously” is not so much a textbook on literary craftsmanship (there’s enough of that as it is), but rather a charming, smart, funny and very lively book that can lift even the most inveterate procrastinator off the couch, stir up and inspire the feats of writing.”

Galina Yuzefovich
Literary columnist for Meduza

“Don’t envy anyone, otherwise your brain will turn sour”

Zakhar Prilepin - about the documentary nature of fiction, literary critics and the flowering of Russian literature.

Zakhar Prilepin, writer. Photo - Valery Kuznetsov

Telegram channel “Hemingway will call”

- Your path is a little reminiscent to me the path of Ernest Miller Hemingway. He took part in three wars, hated amateur writers, rewrote and worked hard, wrote books that left a mark on literature. Hemingway worked for the Star newspaper. You left the police service and got a job as a journalist at the Nizhny Novgorod newspaper Delo. Have you ever associated yourself with Hemingway?

What for? This is too superficial and banal an association. I wrote a whole book about the poets and philosophers who came before Ham: Derzhavin, Chaadaev, Katenin, Batyushkov, the brilliant Bestuzhev-Marlinsky. They were all professional soldiers, unlike Ham. But I don’t associate myself with them either. Let everyone who needs it associate themselves with me.

- But since I’m starting with Hemingway, how do you assess this writer’s contribution to world literature?

A stunningly cool writer and man. I think we would have become friends.

But I still don’t understand - okay, in the West, many people there don’t know anyone except Ham. But in Russia! Garshin fought with us, a powerful writer. Zoshchenko fought, he was an abnormally courageous man. Gumilev fought like no one had ever dreamed of. Valentin Kataev fought for both the Reds and the Whites - there is such a stunning biography. Dozens of Russian writers. And every time they remember Hemingway. After the First World War, he was not a professional military man at all, you understand? Unlike most of the above-mentioned Russian Piits, who were led by entire units. And half of them were journalists - in the current sense. So what.

Hemingway said that what shaped him as a writer was the Star newspaper's list of rules. “Use short phrases. Use short first paragraphs. Use colorful language. Be positive, not negative.” And so on. How has journalism helped you? You said this about it: “Journalism is bullshit, it’s not worth talking about, much less writing.” Why did you go into journalism?

For money. But Ham is right, partly. Journalism taught me a thing or two. Words became more pliable.

- “You have to be a very scrupulous, soft-bodied creature to be afraid that someone was killed in your presence.” Have you ever feared that life could end at any moment?

There were no moments when it could definitely stop. However, I don’t really think about it on others either. As if there is a life that will not end. Dancing around your own life is humiliating for a male person. Died and died. News to me too.

I don’t want to go deep into the theme of war, but it metastasizes throughout many of your texts and has generally become a catalyst for your writing. At what point did you discover the writer in you? There, in Chechnya?

This is the most common civil question. I discovered the writer in me when I read poetry avidly as a child.

When you wrote your first novel, you decided that this would be the only text. Did you feel like you were a writer and needed to “speak up”?

Nope. I just started writing, mostly for fun. I had free time: I thought, well, I’ll write a book, which is not the case.

Dancing around your own life is humiliating for a male person. Died and died. Good news for me too

Andrei Rubanov’s debut novel “Plant and It Will Grow,” which you said “shocked you,” stems from Rubanov’s prison experience. You wrote your first novel from the Chechen experience. I'm trying to figure out if there is a connection between apparently undesirable, negative events in a potential writer's life and the writer finally starting to write. Do such events become a catalyst?

I just had to describe something, so I described it. I have 17 books. A small part of them is about the war. All this doesn't matter. War is a common form of life. Everything is just a little brighter and more naked there. And more good people around. But in general, this is not an end in itself. If it were possible, I would never walk around with a machine gun, but would walk around with a beer mug. And I would feel just as good.

Hemingway once wrote that he killed "at least 122 people." I will quote part of the letter: “I have 22 easily visible wounds (perhaps this is in addition to the hidden ones, and I have killed at least 122 people, in addition to those I cannot know for sure. The last one, no, not the last one, but the one whose I suffered death especially badly, I was a soldier in a German uniform and helmet. He was riding a bicycle ahead of the retreating unit along the road to Aachen, which we cut just above Saint-Quentin. I did not want our people to shoot from a heavy machine gun and scare away those who were following him in armored personnel carriers, and said: “Leave him to me,” and shot him with a carbine." - June 2, 1950, from a letter to Professor Arthur Mitsener. Have you ever written such letters?

Bullshit. He may have killed this one, but 122 people - that’s how many a sniper can kill. Ham is playing the fool here.

My grandfather, Nikolai Egorovich Nisiforov, was a machine gunner from 1942 to 1947 - from Stalingrad to Western Ukraine - he could have written such letters, but it certainly would never have occurred to him.

And I especially didn’t have to. I carried out operations that resulted in people dying. I have nothing more to say about this. I never think about it or feel anything about it.

And I certainly don’t feel like dwelling on all this.

- Another documentarian of the war is Joseph Heller (the greatest “architect” of texts, by the way). In Catch 22, Yossarian rips through the entire first aid kit and treats Snowden for a wound “wide and long, the size of an arm, and too terrible to look at, much less judge its depth. The torn muscles in the bloody trench moved like minced meat that came to life.” But this is all background in order to “spread the sails of the novel’s theme.” Heller's genius, in my opinion, lay not in the fact that he put military experience onto paper, but in the way he did it. How important do you think the “architectural component” is in a text?

I didn’t understand the connection between the wound and architecture. Architecture is important. Understanding architecture comes intuitively. Either a building is built or it crumbles. There is no science about this.

- It is no coincidence that I touched on the topic of architecture. Speaking about “Pagan” you said that “the architecture is impeccable.” And Hemingway, in turn, said that “writing is architecture, not the art of decorating.” Please decipher what you mean by the concept of “text architecture”?

The text can be constructed linearly: like a line from point “a” to point “b”. It's simple. The hero got up, walked, came, fell. And a complex architecture, when a hundred heroes, in the mode of a hundred cardiograms, act, intersecting at the right points, and finally coinciding in one. This is aerobatics. Tulyanin did it at the highest level in “Pagan”: like Sholokhov or Leonid Leonov. Nothing like this happens in his other books. And “Pagan” is a miracle.

"Seven Lives", collection by Zakhar Prilepin, 2016, ed. "AST"

- Did you fall in love with Gaito Gazdanov and Leonid Leonov precisely for the “architectural quality” of their texts?

Gaito has no architecture, he has music, unearthly. Leonov has, yes, the most complex structures, which he controls with anomalous skill. "The Road to the Ocean" is a brilliant novel. Nowadays, few people work like this. Even a reader worthy of this book cannot be found during the day.

- “Since Dostoevsky, today almost no one can do it: when there are a huge number of events and heroes, when the novel creates a feeling of enormous polyphony and the author remembers everyone and everyone. And when in this polyphony the main theme suddenly arises - and it, as in the best, classical music, suddenly unfurls the sails and takes the novel into such open spaces that...” What do you think, no one writes like that now, because they don’t know how? Don't want to study? Because - what?

We have brilliant writers. Alexander Terekhov works in a way that no one has ever dreamed of. And many, yes, walk small and think about themselves more than about what is greater than all of us. But Dostoevsky did not think about himself at all. He, as a created body, is not present in his texts at all. Even when he writes in the first person.

Are there really texts without a theme? Every text has a theme. Even “I’ll sit down now and write to you all” is also a theme.

- And in general, what should a writer learn? And most importantly - how?

You need to live. Live the life of your land and your huge relatives. And writing will follow. The starting point should be something that is very far from the author.

- Why are there so many amateurs in literature now?

There were always a lot of them. Now even less. At the head of the process are unconditional pros: Vodolazkin, Krusanov, Varlamov - all masters.

I won’t name names, but you said that one fairly famous writer is “nothing.” Please give your definition of who a real writer is. And why those who publish books are NOT writers.

No definition. Akunin is a bad writer for readers with average taste. Although the story teller is normal. An average spirited fiction writer of the early 20th century. There were a lot of them back then. Over time this will become obvious to everyone. It is not necessary to define this.

You speak openly about the work of other writers, without fear that they will be offended. “In retaliation, they can make their own list and ignore me.” Many other authors are more reserved and do not want to talk about their colleagues. Why do you speak so openly about what you think?

People are afraid to speak out of weakness. They realize that their place in literature is small, and they are afraid to reduce it even more. But I have my place in literature, and I’m not afraid to say anything. Neither about war, nor about peace, nor about colleagues, nor about their nationality, nor about their gender or asexuality. I did not come into the world to hide something obvious to me all my life.

-Where is the border between literature and garbage?

In your head.

- “Only by producing garbage does a writer become financially independent.” If I’m not mistaken, Steinbeck also said that “either phenomenally low-level, “tabloid” garbage, or brilliant literature is sold in colossal editions. And the “middle peasants” suffer. How can you explain this spread of the reader across the poles?

In Russia this stopped working. Serious writers have long been playing with any romance novels, detective stories and erotica. Books by the same Evgeniy Vodolazkin top the sales lists. I respect our reader, he is very smart.

- Indeed, the circulation of “non-trash” writers is growing. How can you explain the growing audience interest in “intellectual prose”?

The sky became closer.

- At what point does a writer become a writer?

At the moment of conception.

“For me, the most important thing happens in the area of ​​language.” So, are you a fan of, as Olga Slavnikova says, “logocentric” (linguistic) literature?

If you like, yes.

- You wrote this about Samsonov’s debut: “This hasn’t happened for a long time: I walked around shocked and told everyone about it.” Why did he shock you so much? And how do you evaluate what he writes now? I supported “Falcon Frontier” in the final of the “Big Book” 2017, and Danilkin won.

I haven't read his latest books. Once. Then I’ll read it and tell you. "Kamlaev's Anomaly" is as much a miracle as "Pagan". But this is not a debut. His debut is the novel “Legs” about a football player, very average. But my son, who is interested in football, read it. I buy all Samsonov’s books. Just in gratitude for the “Anomaly...”

And in general, why shouldn’t people like Samsonov become “mass writers”? Those who would be read by millions of people. This is “niche literature”, whatever you say.

Accident. Could become. Some little thing is missing.

Why don’t really bright texts “find” the reader? Here, for example, is your favorite “Fornication and Mudo” or “Pagan” (as examples “from the surface”).

Ivanov is read by many and with pleasure. Among the few mentioned above is he: first among equals. Alexey Ivanov, Oleg Ermakov, Mikhail Tarkovsky - they are all classics. If someone hasn’t read them today, it’s not their problem. Lyosha Ivanov simply has a harmful character. He could occupy a larger place if he thought less about how they write about him, where he is awarded and what awards he is not given. His prose is stunning. “Tobol” is a novel on the level of “Peter” by Alexei Tolstoy, especially the first book. The second one has a little more speculation and action than I would like, but that’s the author’s choice.

Well, since we are talking about Samsonov. When I asked him why he could do something that others couldn’t, he told me that the result was “something ‘book-like’,” and compared his work to “a good stool from a certified carpenter.” Was it his modesty that spoke, or is he really so obsessed with the search for perfection that he doesn’t consider his, in general, perfect novels as such? What do you think?

He says reasonable things, well done.

And in general, why do some people succeed, while others cannot achieve a text that makes the reader’s heart beat faster?

It doesn't work out because it doesn't work out. A million reasons.

When I read Samsonovsky Kamlaev, an unexpected parallel arose with Sholokhov and his “Quiet Don” (he began the first volume at the age of 20, and finished it at 32). I read and thought: how can they - youngsters - write such a thing? The text contains human experiences, at least of a mature man, and such experiences cannot exist in the head of a 28-year-old youth. How did they both succeed?

- “I don’t believe that a whole novel can come down.” What do you believe in? In hard and persistent work?

First it’s labor, and then it can come down.

You grew up reading the works of Guillaume Apollinaire, Romain Gary and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. You were influenced by Pushkin, Lermontov, Tolstoy. Who else shaped you as a writer?

We called all these names: Gazdanov, Leonid Leonov. Also Anatoly Mariengof. Prose by Valentin Kataev. Alexey Nikolaevich Tolstoy. Poetry: Blok, Yesenin, Lugovskoy, Gumilev, Yuri Kuznetsov, Brodsky. I am now reading Chukhontsev with delight.

- “Literature has always tested the strength and elasticity of language.” And what conclusions about language can be drawn now?

We are in great shape as a people.

- “Freedom is being heard.” As a writer, have you found this freedom?

I didn't lose it.

- “Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Chekhov will beat all attempts to reformat Russian culture.” If I understand you correctly, then the writer is not just a preacher, he is in some way a missionary who must put people’s faith into action with words. You, apparently, are looking for ways to somehow influence the surrounding reality?

I'm just writing. What is written may or may not have an impact. I don't think about it much.

- What do you want to change?

Everything suits me. Let everything be as it is.

- Why are you writing?

I get paid for this.

- “Presidents leave, but literature remains.” What kind of mark do you want to leave behind?

A beautiful framed portrait in my village school. Gilded busts in pubs. So that you can crack nuts on your head. Or raw eggs.

As a person who writes, is attention important to you? Have you ever considered writing as a way to satisfy your own perhaps narcissistic tendencies?

That's the only way I look at it.

- How do you feel about hierarchies in literature? “Pelevin wrote that a writer is an evil, envious ego. We are all like that - and this largely determines the writer’s behavior.” What kind of person are you?

No, not like that. I look at literature as a beautiful clearing, I am happy with the successes of all my friends. And I don't like weeds.

You studied Leo Tolstoy's Caucasian Tales before writing your first novel. Tolstoy himself studied the war “from documents” - and yet the result was a very deep and voluminous thing. Your novel “The Abode” was written “from the guard tower,” which you ascended thanks to archival documents. And yet it is a work of art. Tell me, where is the line between documentary and prose?

Prose is documentary of the highest level. Documentary works with documents, and prose works with consciousness and soul, which are most often not distinguishable in documents.

- “They enter great literature on two horses: innate gift and skill; One is usually missing.” How to balance horses? Is there a recipe?

Recipes are for cooks.

- Is it possible to teach writing?

You can teach not to make common mistakes. Skill - no.

How can one even determine whether a person has this very gift? After all, this internal craving for writing is not necessarily its consequence?

How do you determine rot from fresh vegetables? You don't need any special intelligence for this. If you can read and read.

- Where is the line between writing and graphomania?

In Karaganda.

“I still make money from my books.” That is, a writer in Russia can still feed himself and his family through writing?

Some can, some don't. If we get lucky.

A traffic cop “earns 257 times more” than you. But you could probably earn more, right? Chekhov also wrote: “Write for money? But I never have money, and because I am not used to having it, I am almost indifferent to it. I work sluggishly for money.” What kind of relationship do you have with money, besides the fact that it is a necessity to support your family? I think you are completely unprepared to write for money?

I only write for money. I've been talking about the traffic cop for a long time. I earn more. Traffic cops, moreover, have generally been weaned from taking bribes.

– Writer Zakhar Prilepin 2004 and writer Zakhar Prilepin 2017 - how have you changed through the texts you wrote?

- Don't you miss your name? Aren't you tired of being Zakhar?

You can call me “Zhenya”, I will cry.

You and Zaitsev set up a business producing quilted jackets, and then Rubanov wrote the novel “Patriot”, in which the main character tries to create brilliant quilted jackets. Did he borrow the idea from you?

I think yes. But she was already in the air.

- “Rubanov writes as if he is “pumping iron” or delivering a blow.” How do you write?

It’s like sitting on the shore and looking at the water. And I stroke the head of someone I love.

- “There are people who are called “critics” - they, not without persistence, offer their own view of the literary process, build their own hierarchies, place writers in their places: this one on a pedestal, this one under the bench, but we don’t mention these ones at all...” Irwin Shaw called critics murderers of literature. And yet they have shaped many writers. Danilkin discovered many, for example. How do you, as a writer, feel about them?

Critics are a blessing. There are almost none left. I am very grateful to all of them. Including those who swore. No complaints. I remember in 2009 Narinskaya wrote that Prilepin, yes, was the main writer of the 2000s, but in the 1000s there will be nothing left of him. Isn't this a delight? I love her. I look forward to what she has to say in 2019.

It used to be like this: “A book written by another was perceived not only as an object of irritated envy if this book was successful (“I should be in your place”), but as another coin thrown into a common piggy bank. Or stolen from there." What now?

And now it’s the same.

How do you manage everything? And write books, and take part in public life. Is your life subject to a schedule or is everything spontaneous?

What social life do I take part in? You're confusing me with someone, apparently. I lived in Donbass for 1.5 years and during this time I did not publish a single book, did not go to a single rally, and did not participate in a single meeting.

-What should a writer of the new era be like?

The same as the old days.

- What is your advice to young writers?

Don't envy anyone, otherwise your brain will turn sour.

Interviewed by Egor Appolonov

The winner of “Supernationalsbest” talks about himself, generation, literature

Zakhar Prilepin burst into literature like a shot from a grenade launcher. A former commander of a special forces unit, fought in Chechnya, worked as a security guard, father of many children, National Bolshevik, admirer of Limonov, shaven-headed intellectual - in Prilepin everyone saw what they wanted. Some are representatives of the “new youth”, heirs of the 90s (Prilepin writes especially often about the 90s). Others are of a cult writer, whose total circulation of books in just four years has exceeded a quarter of a million. Still others are an ambitious provincial who came from Nizhny Novgorod to conquer the capital. People never tire of arguing about Prilepin; he evokes no less violent reactions (actions, statements, columns, judgments) than his books.

Zakhar... by the way, what is your middle name?

Just Zakhar.

The other day you received the “Supernational Best” award, which recognized the best book of the decade. That is, we can say that you are the best Russian writer of the last ten years. Do you consider yourself like that?

Well, I'll become a patient in a schizophrenic hospital if I treat myself like that. The prize is, in a certain sense, a lottery. There are a variety of elements at work: an element of luck, fortune, some hidden springs that we do not see and do not know. I take it calmly that I received the “Supernational Best”. This is not the first award in my life, and I hope not the last. I am not the worst writer in Russia, but among my fellow writers I know a dozen writers whom I myself value as highly as possible, and any of them could become a laureate of this prize. It just happened that way.

You started in the 2000s. How do you assess today's publishing industry? How easy is it for a young writer today to break through and become famous?

I didn't get through at all. I wrote the first book, “Pathologies,” and sent the text by e-mail from Nizhny Novgorod to three addresses - to Dmitry Bykov, to the OGI publishing house and to the Andreevsky Flag publishing house. And everything started spinning by itself. Bykov read and published the chapter in the newspaper “Konservator”, where he then worked, “OGI” offered a publishing contract, but it was very cheap, “St. Andrew’s Flag” offered a more expensive contract, I sold the manuscript there. She didn’t go out there for a long time, no one knew me then, but that’s another topic.

I don't think the situation is fundamentally different now. If there is a high-quality text, it will find a publisher, don’t even doubt it. Because today it is not texts that are looking for publishers, but publishers (for example, Sasha Ivanov from Ad Marginem) are looking for texts. And they howl loudly - there are no good texts, no new names. And the myth that now in order to publish your book you need to meet someone and give them cognac is really a myth, because the interest in bright texts on the part of publishers is very serious, extremely.

But, as far as I know, you yourself actively promote young promising writers. Just now the anthology “Ten” has been published, a collection of works by writers of the “zero”, you edited the anthology, looked for authors...

Yes, I didn’t have to look for anyone, after all, there weren’t that many of us in sight... “Ten” is an experience in summing up the results of the “zero” years, literary results. The zero years are over, now the tenth years have begun. And the new authors will already belong to the generation of “ten managers”, it sounds funny. Now I receive a lot of manuscripts, sent to the address of the publishing houses where my books are published, to the website, and to my blog on LiveJournal. I try to read everything, but when I raise my head and look around, I realize that I didn’t notice anything particularly outstanding. But in any case, real talent will not fly past the cash register. It's not the right time.

What are the people who send you manuscripts writing about now?

Mostly young people write, of course. And our time is reflected through these texts. Although if young people write, then most write about their own life experience, or rather, about the lack thereof. In such a state, I would say - non-epic - society lives, nothing happens in the country, society lives in a state of such light, meaningless vanity, there is nothing to write about except about oneself loved. There is no big style, no big step, no big problem. This is, of course, visible. Although there are no fewer writers. Some of them have gone to the Internet, but still the number of those who sit and write large texts is huge. Hundreds of people and hundreds of texts pass through the Debut Prize alone every year.

By the way, the fact that “Debut” has now raised the age limit for participants and authors can now enter there not up to 25 years old, as before, but up to 35 - what do you think is connected with this?

I'm okay with this. In Russia, these age standards have really shifted a long time ago, and by our age - 30-35 - what kind of debut can we talk about? At this age both Lermontov and Yesenin died. By the way, I myself was 29 years old when “Pathologies” came out, I flew past “Debut”, I didn’t fit the age. And if the bar had been higher then, it would have been useful to me at that time. I don’t see anything wrong with the fact that today they raised the age to 35. Many people today start writing later, and it’s good that later. Because when a person starts writing prose at the age of 20, it seems to him that he is like Limonov. And explores the world through his genitals. And he doesn’t realize that Limonov’s other organs are also working perfectly. This, unfortunately, is a common situation among young writers: guys receive some kind of advance and start writing, although, by and large, they still have nothing to write about.

Do you think it is possible to learn to be a writer?

No, I believe that this cannot be learned. What does formal education, a diploma, provide? Self-training, self-discipline, the ability to work with literature, with sources, and after graduating, for example, from the Literary Institute, it is possible to achieve a certain level. But at the same time, the main element remains, forgive the pathos, of literary gift. On the other hand, I have a higher philological education, and I periodically feel a certain head start in relation to my fellow writers who have not studied anywhere. In this sense, education helped me, because in my youth I was simply forced to read some important books, masterpieces of world literature, and some kind of intellectual structure developed. I studied Latin, I know world literature, I believe that my consciousness is more, so to speak, harmonized.

What do you earn now? What is the income of the writer Prilepin?

Yes, I make good money. Both on books and journalistic work. I have three children, we are expecting a fourth, so the expenses in the family are large, and, accordingly, the main tool for earning money for the family is my right hand, with which I type texts on a laptop. I am the editor of the Nizhny Novgorod representative office of Novaya Gazeta, but I earn 70-80 percent from books.

Zakhar, can a good journalist become a good writer? The fact that the average writer can work successfully in journalism is practically an axiom, and cases of the reverse transformation are rare.

No, no, no, this is a far-fetched dilemma. Previously, there was no such division - this is literature, and this is journalism. Everyone whose texts were published in magazines was called journalists - Saltykov-Shchedrin, Tolstoy, and some insignificant reporter. Not a single writer shunned journalism, essays, and journalism. Look at the legacy of Gorky, or Tolstoy, or Dostoevsky - their classical literary works are supported by a huge array of non-fiction, non-fiction texts written in newspapers, magazines, on the topic of the day. Silver Age - everyone wrote both criticism and essays. It is today that poets do not read prose writers, prose writers do not read poets, and almost everyone prefers to sit in their ivory towers. And so writers from my generation, who started in the “zero”, and German Sadullaev, and Sergei Shargunov, and writers of the older generation - Prokhanov, Limonov - all write articles and columns for regular publications, and no one considers this a problem. There is no boundary between literary and journalistic texts. It's all artificial.

You have already said the word “generation” several times in relation to writers who debuted in the last ten years. How much do you feel like you are part of this literary generation? Do you communicate, do you have some common principles, beliefs, ideas? After all, it’s difficult to imagine you next to, for example, Sadullaev.

Why?

Well, because you both have books about the Chechen war. But if “Pathologies” is a look at the war through the eyes of a special forces soldier, a federal officer, then “Shalin Raid” or “I am a Chechen” is a look from the other side, from the other side of the front. Figuratively speaking, if you had not met in literature, you could have met in Chechnya as soldiers of two warring sides.

This is unlikely - when I was in Chechnya, he was in some other place. Sadullaev has some claims against me, I have no claims against him. In “Shalin Raid” he wrote something like that, some hints. I respect Sadullaev. “I am a Chechen” and “Shalin Raid” are his main, signature books. Everything else he wrote may fade over time, but these books will definitely remain. And I respect that he does not exploit the Chechen theme alone, he has excellent journalism, a collection was recently published... Until recently, we were friends, yes...

As for others, I communicate with many. I read almost everyone who started publishing in the 2000s. And I’m glad that they exist, that they are known, read, noticed. Because it’s very easy for us not to notice the whole phenomenon. For example, we slept through the whole neo-soil movement in the 90s - Vasya Golovanov, Misha Tarkovsky, Alexey Varlamov - amazing writers who were simply leaked, they did not receive the recognition they deserved. Tarkovsky is a great Russian writer, the main heir, I believe, of the Astafiev-Rasputin-Belov line, but he is not in Moscow stores, not on a national scale as a significant name, and this, I think, is not good. In general, that part of our literature that was called “village prose” in Soviet times has failed. And she has the right to exist, she has the right to the future. As long as there is Russia, there is a village in Russia. I believe that domestic literature should not be urban, and we live in an era of the absolute primacy of urban prose, books written by city dwellers for city dwellers and about city life. Not all of Russia lives in cities, if that's the case.

What will your next book be about?

There are so many plans and ideas that I can even say what book I will write in five years. I have three or four texts that, God willing, I will be working on in ten years. And there are texts that, I know, will turn into books in the next three to four years. Now I am finishing a collection under the code name “Eight”. There will be eight big stories. Such flashbacks to the 90s. It’s not that I’m once again calling for you to think about the 90s, but I myself am interested in figuring out what was happening then, because it’s obvious to me that it was an incredibly interesting time, and people are gradually realizing that this is exactly the case - despite poverty, bandits, devastation and other horrors.

I have also now collected a huge collection of poems by Eduard Limonov, about 700, and I did this completely free of charge, for myself. And there are a lot of unreleased texts. Well, I promote young people too. After all, both in age and experience, I am already a representative of the “older generation” for those who are now writing their first book.

And how do you feel about this?

Fine.

Arkady Suhovolsky for the online newspaper Newslab.ru
Photo from the official website of Zakhar Prilepin