Held in the Silver Age extension of the State Literary Museum, the Booker Conference 2017 was devoted to the contemporary historical novel. Why is it that novelists are increasingly more likely to look for solutions to present-day problems through retrospection, invoking the long bygone or a more recent past, travelling back to the origins of Russian history and the 20th century’s turbulent revolutionary events that paved the way for our present existence? Which challenges seem particularly poignant, and where do they come from? The speakers include novelists Petr Aleshkovsky and Olga Slavnikova, critic and essayist Vladimir Novikov, and literary critics Evgeny Vezhlyan, Anna Zhuchkova, and Elena Pogorelaya. Also present was writer and historian Sergey Belyakov (Ekaterinburg) to talk about the novel Nomakh. All participants concurred that, while overcoming historical inertia remained a key challenge in contemporary novel-writing, serious progress has been achieved in recent years, judging by the shortlists and the winners of the major literary prizes.

As usual at this conference, the Russian Booker’s literary secretary Igor Shaytanov was its moderator. The hosting institution was represented by Mikhail Shaposhnikov, head of the Silver Age Literature Department.