Russian prize

MOSCOW (Reuter) - Mark Kharitonov, 55, won the first ever Booker Russian Novel Prize, worth pounds 10,000, for his work Lines of Fate or Milashevich's Trunk, written in 1985.

The novel recounts how a scholar, stumbling on sweet wrappings and other belongings in a trunk, becomes fascinated by the life of Milashevich, an almost forgotten Russian writer.

One member of the international jury described the novel, chosen from a shortlist of six, as an example of 'very intellectual literary writing'.