Salikhat

The novel is a finalist of the national literary prize “Manuscript of the Year” and tells the story of several years in the life of an ordinary woman from Dagestan.

Salikhat lives in a Dagestani village lost among the mountains. Like all young girls, she dreams of a happy marriage built on mutual love and respect. But her father decides everything for her. Against her will, Salikhat is married off to Jamaluddin, a widower. The girl ends up in an unfamiliar house where a new life awaits her—with its own rules and duties. She must please not only her husband, but also the other household members: her demanding husband’s aunt, the elder stepson, and his capricious wife. But most of all, Salikhat is terrified by the mysterious disappearance of Jamaluddin’s first wife—the beauty Zehra… A new life seems to her like a true nightmare, but what the future has in store for her is yet to be learned.

“This is a saga written in the simple and naïve language of a sixteen-year-old girl. A saga about what has always united all women, regardless of nationality, religion, and age: about love, family, and children. And also about the expectation of happiness that will surely come. You just need to believe, hope, and wait.” Natalia Yeletskaya