Alisa Ganieva

Alisa Ganieva
Born	Alisa Arkadyevna Ganieva 1985 (age 30–31) Moscow, USSR (present-day Moscow, Russia)
Pen name	Gulla Khirachev
Occupation	writer, essayist
Alma mater	Maxim Gorky Literature Institute

Alisa Arkadyevna Ganieva (or Ganiyeva; Russian: Алиса Аркадьевна Ганиева, born 1985) is a Russian author, writing novels, short prose and essays. In 2009, she was awarded the Debut literary prize for her debut novel Salaam, Dalgat!, published using the pseudonym of Gulla Khirachev.^[1]

Ganieva was born in Moscow in an Avar family^[2] but moved with her family to Dagestan, where she lived in Gunib and later attended school in Makhachkala. In 2002 she moved back to Moscow^[3] and graduated from the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute. She works as a literary critic for the Nezavisimaya Gazeta daily.^[1]

She won the Debut literary prize, the under-25 competition for authors writing in Russian, in 2009 for Salaam, Dalgat!. The identity of the author, who published it pseudonymously, was only discovered at the award ceremony.^[2] The novel describes the everyday life of Dagestani youth in the cities and shows the decay of traditional life and their difficult relations with Islam, the traditional religion of Dagestanis.^[4] The characters use the "Dagestani Russian", a pidgin version of Russian, to communicate, the first instance when this was presented in a literary work.^[5][6]

In 2012, Ganieva published her second novel, Holiday Mountain, also set in Dagestan. In 2014, it was translated to German.^[7] In 2015 the Italian ^[8] and the English ^[9] translations came out. The most recent one published by the Deep Vellum Publishing House (USA) is called "The Mountain And The Wall" (Russian: Праздничная гора). Ganieva spoke about the book to the audience of the London bureau of the Voice Of Russia radio ^[10] In 2016, Spanish^[11] and Turkish translations followed.

In April 2015 her new novel "The Bride And The Bridegroom" was released in Russia and listed for the major literary awards.^[12] In particular, it made to the short list of the Russian Booker Prize, but did not receive the prize.

She also published short stories and fairy tales. She has received a number of literary awards for her fiction.^[13][14]

In June 2015 Ganieva was listed by The Guardian as one of the most talented and influential young people living in Moscow.^[15] She is number 9 on the list.

References

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