Almaty based-writer Ilya Odegov won the Russian Award in Flash Fiction category with his short story “Timur and his summer”, Tengrinews reports.
Almaty based-writer Ilya Odegov won the Russian Award in Flash Fiction category with his short story “Timur and his summer”, Tengrinews reports.
The young writer skillfully presented the essence and struggle to comprehend the changes taking place during adolescence in his clear yet exquisite prose.
“It is a great honor and joy for me to be the winner of the Russian Award. Standing on this stage, I want to thank my wife and remarkable poet Aigerim Tazhy for loving and supporting me. I want to thank my now-deceased teacher Olga Markova. She would have been proud of me. I dare hope that I have lived up to expectations and that my prose, as any good quality literature, is able to help people hear the voice of their heart, reason and conscience. Maybe if we could listen to our hearts we would become more caring towards people around us and the world we live in,” Odegov said in his acceptance speech.
An alumnus of the Kazakh Ablai Khan University of International Relations and World Languages Odegov is a recipient of a number of literary awards. In 2003, the writer won the Contemporary Kazakh Novel award and the British Poetry On award. A year later, Odegov won the Theatre Seeks Writers award. He has been long listed for the Russian Award twice.
The Russian Award, initiated in 2005, promotes development of Russian language and literature as a part of the world literary heritage. The jury of the competition consists of notable Russian writers and critics. There have been 70 winning writers and poets from 26 countries so far.
The Russian Award is given in three categories: Extended Prose, Flash Fiction and Poetry.
Reporting by Aizhan Tugelbayeva, writing by Gyuzel Kamalova