Zuleikha

WINNER OF THE BIG BOOK AWARD THE YASNAYA POLYANA AWARD AND THE BEST PROSE WORK OF THE YEAR AWARD Soviet Russia 1930. Zuleikha the pitiful hen lives with her brutal husband Murtaza and her mother-in-law in a small Tartar village. When Murtaza is executed by communist soldiers she is sent into exile to a remote region on the Angara River in Siberia. Hundreds die of hunger and exhaustion on the journey and over the first difficult winter yet exile is the making of Zuleikha. As she gets to know her fellow survivors among them an eccentric German doctor a painter and the conscience-stricken Commander Ignatov her husbands killer Zuleikha begins to build a new life far removed from the one she left behind. Guzel Yakhinas outstanding debut inspired by her grandmothers childhood memories of being exiled to the Gulag has been translated into twenty-one languages capturing the hearts of readers all over the world.