A humanized human. Evgenia Nekrasova

Abstract

The article is devoted to E. Nekrasova, a contemporary writer, whose school novel Kalechina-malechina was short-listed for The Big Book Prize and The National Bestseller Award in 2019. Kalechina-malechina is analyzed as a specimen of the contemporary Russian crossover novel (which targets both adult and young audiences), highly popular in the West, but having trouble taking root in Russia – perhaps, because the genre suggests a polyphony not only in terms of the plot, but also psychology, whereas Russian literature of the 2000s – 2010s is predominantly monologic. Nekrasova, on the other hand, in her Kalechina-malechina and Sestromam, a collection of short stories, embraces the principle of the diversity of voices. Comparing Nekrasova’s work with another example of contemporary school prose, provided by B. Khanov’s Inconstants [Nepostoyannye velichiny], the author decides that the integrity of a text today is defined by its polyphonic quality, by the ability to hear a different opinion: the ability that some modern authors and even critics are badly lacking.