Ruth Ozeki Wins 2015 Yasnaya Polyana Literary Award

The Yasnaya Polyana Award for the best foreign novel of the 21st century has been awarded to A Tale for the Time Being (Penguin Books) by Japanese-American author Ruth Ozeki. 

Founded by the Leo Tolstoy Museum & Estate and Samsung Electronics, the 13th annual Yasnaya Polyana Literary Awards ceremony took place on October 28, 2015, at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, Russia. For the first time, the award included a category for Foreign Literature, making Yasnaya Polyana Russia’s first international literary award, and Ozeki the first international recipient. Ozeki and the novel’s Russian translator, Yekaterina Ilyina, will be awarded 1,000,000 and 200,000 rubles, respectively. A Tale for the Time Being is published in Russia by AST and by Penguin Books in the US.

The new Foreign Literature Award was introduced by Vladimir Tolstoy, great-great-grandson of the writer Leo Tolstoy and chairman of the Yasnaya Polyana prize committee. The long list for thr Foreign Literature category comprised 33 titles by international authors. For more information on the Yasnaya Polyana Literary Award and the nominees, visit here.