Zuleikha byGuzel Yakhina (translated byLisa C. Hayden): It is 1930 in the Soviet Union andJosef Stalin''apos;s de-kulakization program has found its pace. Among the victims is a young Tatar family: the husband murdered, the wife exiled to Siberia. This is her story of survival and eventual triumph. Winner of the 2015 Russian Booker prize, this debut novel draws heavily on the first-person account of the author''apos;s grandmother, a Gulag survivor. (Il''apos;ja)

''As we watch its heroine''apos;s existence devolve from an oppressive domestic servitude into something disastrously worse, Guzel Yakhina''apos;s sprawling, ambitious first novelZuleikha 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.''apos;

''This is a powerful Russian saga, giving an immense overview of life under communist rule... This author is a master at painting an image of the world as it was then.''apos;

''While many writers have attempted to comprehend Soviet history''s darkest moment, Yakhina finds a way to make it new.''apos;

''Yakhina''s debut novel has shaken the Russian book world so deeply over its first three years of life that her second book topped the 2018 sales charts alongside international bestsellers by Dan Brown and Jojo Moyes... This tale of a woman who holds onto compassion while enduring atrocity also features cinematic narration and intricate plot construction.''apos;

''Zuleikha has an energy that is hard to resist.''apos;

''An intimate story of human endurance.''

''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.''apos;

''There''apos;s something that Guzel Yakhina succeeds in transmitting with an amazing, sharp exactness: a woman''apos;s attitude towards love. Not towards a subject of love, but towards love itself.''

''A powerful account of individual lives trapped in one of the greatest tragedies of the 20th century.''apos;