Margarita Simonyan’s novel ended up on the longlist for the Big Book Prize. It was added...

Margarita Simonyan’s novel ended up on the longlist for the Big Book Prize. It was added there retroactively

The dystopian novel “In the Beginning Was the Word — in the End There Will Be the Number” by Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of the propaganda television channel RT, was added retroactively to the longlist for the Big Book Prize, noted critic Sergey Lebedenko, who runs the Telegram channel Knizhizhar.

The Big Book expert council announced the works included in the longlist on April 22. Initially, there were 29 books in the Fiction category. That was the list published, among others, by the state agency TASS and Kommersant.

However, the list that appeared on the Big Book website and Telegram channel already had 30 books in the Fiction category. The Telegram post had also been edited — it carries the corresponding mark.

“There, instead of Andrey Stolyarov, who became 26th, 25th place is occupied by… Margarita Simonyan, ‘In the Beginning Was the Word — in the End There Will Be the Number!’ And they have already managed to update it on the prize website too,” Lebedenko writes.

The prize organizers have not yet commented on the changes to the list of nominees.

Margarita Simonyan’s book “In the Beginning Was the Word — in the End There Will Be the Number” was published in July 2025 by AST. It is a novel about what will happen to humanity in 60 years and what the end of the world will be like. The book was written “in full accordance with biblical prophecies,” the publisher claimed.

@meduzalive