Zuleikha

By: Guzel Yakhina, Lisa C. Hayden - translator

Narrated by: Elise Arsenault

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 husband’s killer - Zuleikha begins to build a new life far removed from the one she left behind.

Guzel Yakhina’s outstanding debut - inspired by her grandmother's childhood memories of being exiled to the Gulag - has been translated into twenty-one languages, capturing the hearts of listeners all over the world.

©2015, 2019 Guzel Yakhina, Translation © 2019 by Lisa C. Hayden. (P)2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Stunning look at the Russian revolution

A fantastic book, well worth the time. It gave me a chance to understand the Russian revolution and it’s impact on a handful of people discarded in Siberia. The ruthless and inhuman doctrines of the party’s bureaucrats sharply contrasting to the humanity of the people whose lives they control. My only beef - though small- is that the narrator didn’t bother to learn how to say the occasional foreign Russian, German and French words correctly.

Aweful

Aside from the squeaky annoying voice, the reader tries to imitate a Russian or foreign accents with disastrous results. Not only does it sound vulgar, but it must be terribly insulting to the speakers of Russian. The book has been translated into English. Why butcher the dialogue. I had to stop listening to it after 30 min. Annoying and disappointing.

And, oh, the writing.

A beautiful story, yes but it’s the writing that picks you up and transports you directly into Zuleikha’s experience. Reading Guzel’s work is like reading a movie.. the sights, sounds, smells….every sense is pricked. I lived this book….I was actually there, breathing the same cold air. Don’t miss it.

Wonderful book

A masterfully drawn, spellbinding portrait of a woman's life in a turbulent period. One of the best books I've read in the past year. Even the harshest parts are written with such a delicate hand.

Wasted

Not a purposeful book; so please don’t waste your time. I tried to keep listening for something exciting happen