‘A powerful account of individual lives trapped in one of the greatest tragedies of the 20th century.’
Zuleikha
The International Bestseller
Description
WINNER OF THE BIG BOOK AWARD, THE LEO TOLSTOY YASNAYA POLYANA AWARD AND THE BEST PROSE WORK OF THE YEAR AWARD
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2020 READ RUSSIA PRIZE
RUNNER-UP FOR THE EBRD LITERATURE PRIZE, 2020
Zuleikha is the model of a dutiful wife. Biddible and meek, she has resigned herself to brutal treatment at the hands of her cruel husband and the carping of her despotic mother-in-law. While Russia reels in the aftermath of its recent revolution, life in her small Tatar village is relatively untouched. Or so it seems to Zuleikha, until the day her husband is executed by communist soldiers.
Zuleikha is exiled to Siberia and forced to leave behind everything she knows. Yet in that harsh, desolate wilderness, she begins to build a new life for herself and discovers an inner strength she never knew she had. This is a supremely ambitious epic about one woman's determination, not only to survive, but to flourish in the face of the greatest adversity.
Reviews
‘Yakhina’s prose can be exquisite, especially in sequences such as the one where Zuleikha watches prisoners escaping from the train… It is Zuleikha’s perspective and the way in which she adapts that capture our attention. The unexpected birth of a son.. and her transformation from a passive to a powerful protagonist is one of the joys of Yakhina’s work.’
‘Written in a rich and highly visual prose... Zuleikha's story is one of injustice and pain, but also of a woman's emancipation and renewal.’
‘As we watch its heroine’s existence devolve from an oppressive domestic servitude into something disastrously worse, Guzel Yakhina’s sprawling, ambitious first novel Zuleikha reminds us just how brutal the Soviet system was… Zuleikha does an admirable job of dramatizing a historical period rapidly receding into the forgotten past… Dramatic and eventful, Zuleikha sweeps us into a distant era.’