Bio



Alisa Ganieva is a writer of fiction and essays. In 2009, her first long story - Salam, Dalgat! about her native land in the Caucasus - won the prestigious Debut Prize a major literary award for young writers. The significance of the achievement may be judged by the fact that approximately sixty thousand manuscripts were entered in the competition.

Alisa is now the author of three novels, The Mountain And The Wall (Праздничная гора, AST, 2012) and Bride and Groom (Жених и невеста, AST, 2015) and Offended Sensibilities (Оскорбленные чувства, AST, 2018). She has also published a collection of stories and essays entitled Salam, Dalgat! (2010). Alisa is also a winner of the Triumph Prize, a noted Russian award for talented writers, artists, actors, and musicians (2010, in the young winners category).

Ms. Ganieva has been a finalist for other well-known national literary awards - the Yury Kazakov Prize (in 2010, for the best short story of the year), the Belkin Prize (in 2010, for the best long story of the year), the Yasnaya Polyana literary prize (in 2013) and the Russian Booker Prize (in 2015). 

Recently, Ms. Ganieva has beеn on the long-list for the Big Book Prize (in 2013 and 2015), the National Bestseller Prize (in 2012), and the NOS prize (in 2013).

In 2015, the Britain's The Guardian listed her among the thirty most talented young people in Moscow.

Ganieva’s fiction has beеn translated into several languages and is published in many countries, where it is has been very well received by critics and the public alike.

In the spring of 2016, Ms. Ganieva gave a series of six lectures on Russia at King’s College (London) as an annual cultural resident.

In 2015-17 Ms. Ganieva has been teaching Creative Writing and Global Literature at the University of Iowa’s summer Between the Lines program designed for American, Arab and Russian students. She is also an alumna of Iowa’s International Writing Program

She worked as a juror for the Debut Prize (2015) and Russian Booker Prize (2016) in Russia. And in 2017 she is among the jurors of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature.


Ganieva is also a civil activist and a member of the Moscow PEN-center board.

Books in Russia:
Полет археоптерикса – (сборник статей), Независимая Газета, 2010. – 136 с. 978-5-86712-174-7
Салам тебе, Далгат! – АСТ: Редакция Елены Шубиной, 2010. – 320 с. 978-5-17-069107-4, 978-5-271-29617-8
Праздничная гора. – АСТ: Редакция Елены Шубиной, 2012. – 256 с. 978-5-271-44515-6
Жених и невеста. – АСТ: Редакция Елены Шубиной, 2015. – 288 с. 978-5-17-090287-3
Салам тебе, Далгат! Странные сказки.  Издательские решения, 2017, – 164 с. 978-5-4485-3362-4
Оскорбленные чувства.  АСТ: Редакция Елены Шубиной, 2018.  315 с. 978-5-17-110042-1
Ее Лиличество Брик на фоне Люциферова века. – Молодая гвардия, 2019. – 576 с. 978-5-235-04306-0

Books in other countries:
Germany - Die Russische Mauer, 2014, Suhrkamp Verlag.
Eine Liebe im Kaukasus, 2016, Suhrkamp Verlag.
France - Salam, Dalgat!, 2013, L’Aube.
La montagne du festin, 2017, Gallimard.
USA - The Mountain And The Wall, 2015, Deep Vellum.
Bride and Groom, 2018, Deep Vellum.
Spain - La montaña festiva, 2015, Turner.
Catalonia - La muntanya de la festa, 2015, L'Altra Editorial.
Italy - La montagna in festa, 2015, La Nuova Frontiera.
Turkey - Bayram Dağı, 2016, Tekin.
Netherlands De Russische Muur, 2017, Wereldbibliotheek.
Liefde in de Kaukasus, 2018, Wereldbibliotheek.
Republic of Korea 상처받은 영혼들, Offended Sensibilities, 2019, 열아홉, Nineteen.
Sweden - Var Hör Jag Hemma?, 2019, Ariel Förlag.
India - Bigyapone Mele Na, 2020, Patra Bharati.
Austria - Verletzte Gefühle, 2021, Wieser Verlag

Anthologies in Russia
Статьи в сборнике "Молодая кавказская литература" (Олимп, 2009).
Статьи в сборнике "Новая русская критика" (Олимп, 2009).
Salam, Dalgat! in Squaring the Circle (Glas Publishers, 2010).
"Вечер превращается в ночь" в сборнике "14: Женская проза нулевых" (Астрель, 2012).
"Тринадцать" в сборнике "Красная стрела" (АСТ, 2013).
"Правда или приказ?" в альманахе "Альманах-30" (Буки Веди, 2016).

Anthologies in other countries:
China - Salam, Dalgat! in a collection of stories called Squiring The Circle (People’s Literature, 2010)
Germany - Salam, Dalgat! in Das schönste Proletariat der Welt (Suhrkamp, 2011)
Wir Nationalverräter in the collection of essays Euromaidan: Wa in der Ukraine auf dem Spiel steht (Suhrkamp, 2014)
Spain – Salam, Dalgat! and Demonios in El segundo circulo (La otra orilla, 2011)
Italy - Salam, Dalgat! in Il secondo cerchio (Marco Tropea Editore, 2012)
Thirteen in Falce Senza Martello: Racconti post-sovietici  (Stilo Editrice, 2017)
Greece – Truth or Dare in the Anthology of contemporary Russian prose (Filntisi, 2016)
Finland - Putoaminen in Toisaalta, kaikkea voi sattua (Werner Söderström Osakeyhtiö, 2015)
USA – Shaitans in the collection of stories Read.Russia!: an anthology of new voices (Read Russia, Inc, 2012).