A friend of mine named Margaret Meklin recently won the Russian Prize — awarded for the best work in Russian by a writer living abroad — in the short-story category. From her amusing essay about going to the prize ceremony in Moscow:
I chose to participate in this contest out of desperation: Working at a U.S. company in the customer service department, I was somewhat tired of clients who didn’t hide their annoyance at my Slavic accent.. . . I was hoping that upon winning this prize, I would acquire an inner strength protecting me from [their] impatience.
. . .
After the ceremony, I stumbled upon the main juror, the one who had ironically called me a “genius,” and the phrase he greeted me with was, “Are you surprised that you got it? You haven’t read the other nominees . . . they were even worse than you!”