The novel “Stone Girl Water” takes place in a mountain village in Dagestan—a place seemingly cut off from the modern world. As it was a hundred years ago, people believe in legends and curses of their ancestors, bake цкен, embroider a belt for the wedding; family stories are recalled more often here than the war that recently ended. Only Jamiliya, the teacher, is worried that children increasingly come to school “closed off”—wearing hijabs; teenagers go into the forest, where they live as “the faithful.” She stays loyal to tradition and tries to live by her fathers’ laws, but soon she will also have to choose between love and war.