I had no idea that part of this literary conference is an award ceremony.
This afternoon Orhan Pamuk popped up and received an award for lifetime achievement.
Another award went to a young Russian author named Irina Denezhkina, she is published in many countries, also in the US. See for example this review on Bookslut.
Unfortunately her presentation about the future of literature, most of us are supposed to say something about this topic, was hard to follow. For some reason she decided to speak in English instead of Russian.
I guess because of language problems she is not very talkative, but during lunch she told me that she has a son named Wassili.
I don't know her work, nevertheless I was glad that she won an award.
Silence needs to be rewarded.
Or I just happen to sympathize with young mothers.