ELKOST International literary agency - Ludmila Ulitskaya's public lectures in Japan

In November, 2009, marking a launch of Japanese edition of her last novel Daniel Stein, Translator by SHINCHOSHA (http://www.shinchosha.co.jp/) publishing house, Ludmila Ulitskaya appeared in Tokyo with a cycle of free public lectures:

- in Aoyama Book Center (November 3rd, http://www.aoyamabc.co.jp/45/45210/).

- in The University of Tokyo (November 5th, http://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/index_e.html),

- in Tokyo University of Foreign Studies (http://www.tufs.ac.jp/index.html).

Featured titles

Palisandria (Astrophobia), a novel by Sasha Sokolov (1985)

Rights sold: Czech Republic – PROSTOR, Italy - ATMOSPHERE LIBRI, Russia – AZBOOKA, OGI, USA – GROVE WEIDENFELD

"An enchanting, tragic, and touching work." - VLADIMIR NABOKOV

"A book of rare depth, ...wildly funny and oddly fascinating and sad; it is the sort of book you feel sorry to close after the last page." - TATYANA TOLSTAYA

"It will undoubtedly come to be recognized as one of the great classics of Russian prose." — Newsweek

"The voice is amazingly sensitive and imaginative, gloriously lucid of language and full of broad comedy and whimsical wit." — The Washington-Post Book World

"Sokolov [is] already, on the strength of A School for Fools, assured of a place in the pantheon of twentieth-century Russian literature... He is a prose poet who combines, to a rare degree, linguistic precision, imaginative boldness, and wit in its profounder sense—the intellectual faculty that directs a penetrating, pencil-thin shaft of light on that elusive point where absurdity and sadness meet." — Voice Literary Supplement

"A lyrical vision of extraordinary intensity..." — Chicago Daily News

"There is no other book in Russian Literature that is perfect stylistically and conceptually, and is capable of simultaneously arousing a lucky reader in the middle of the night and making him laugh as loud as never before; and marvelling at the true wisdom of some or maybe all of the statements in the book... The Nobel-worthy Palisandria by Sasha Sokolov is a pleasure to read, unlike the overrated pompous loads by such bores as Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, and Solzhenitsyn. Sokolov finally shows that you do not have to sport a mass of facial hair and preach about Russian "soul" to be truly a writer of genius." (amazon.com)

Zuleikha Opens Her Eyes, a novel by Guzel Yakhina (2015)

German rights are handled by Christina Links: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Rights sold: Armenia - ORACLE, Azerbaijan - QANUN, Bosnia - BUYBOOK, Bulgaria - COLIBRI, China - The People´s Literature, Croatia - HENA, Czech Republic - PROSTOR, Denmark - JP/POLITIKENS, Estonia - TANAPAEV, Finland - INTO, France - NOIR SUR BLANC, France (large print) - Éditions Voir de près, Germany - AUFBAU, Hungary - EUROPA, India - SHARDA (hindi), Italy - SALANI, Israel - CARMEL, Iran - NILOOFAR, Japan - HAKUSUISHA, Kazakhstan - FOLIANT, S.Korea - WALKER (Geodneunsaram), Latvia - ZVAIGZNE, Lithuania - ALMA LITTERA, Macedonia - ANTOLOG, Mongolia - MASH NUUTS MEDIA, Netherlands - QUERIDO, Norway - CAPPELEN DAMM, Poland - NOIR SUR BLANC, Portugal - BERTRAND, Romania - HUMANITAS, Russia - AST, Serbia - SAMIZDAT, Slovakia - SLOVART, Spain - Acantilado, Sweden - Ersatz, Tatar language – Tatar Publishing House, Turkey - TEAS, Ukraine - BookChef, Uzbekistan - ZABARJAD MEDIA (book edition), SUG'DIYONA (magazine rights), World English - ONEWORLD, World Arabic - ARAB SCIENTIFIC PUBLISHERS, World Esperanto - ARS LIBRI

Winner of the 2020 Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa International Literary Award (Italy)
Finalist of the the 2020 EBRD Literature Prize (UK)
Winner of the 2018 Abolhassan Najafi Award for the best translated novel (Iran)
FInalist of the Prix Médicis award (2017, France)
Prix du magazine "Transfuge" (2017, France)
Winner of the 2015 Big Book literary award
Winner of the People's Choice open online voting for the 2015 Big Book literary award
Winner of the 2015 "Ticket to the Stars" prize
Winner of the 2015 Best Prosaic Work of the Year prize
Winner of the 2015 Yasnaya Polyana award
Winner of the People's Choice open online voting for the 2015 Yasnaya Polyana award
Finalist of the 2015 Russian Booker literary award
Finalist of the the 2015 NOS literary award

Guzel Yakhina’s debut novel Zuleikha Opens Her Eyes is an enjoyable and smooth novel, unpretentious mainstream historical fiction that covers a lot of cultural, ethnic, religious, and sociopolitical issues.

The novel begins in 1930 in a Tatar village, from which a kulak woman Zuleikha is quickly sent into exile after her husband is murdered by communists. Zuleikha’s own life — after seeing her husband killed, after a horrendous train trip to a spot on the Angara River where her group of exiles will settle, and after a difficult first winter that kills many — settles into a new routine with characters nothing like her village neighbors. The characters are many but distinct, and they include a rather dotty doctor, an artist who paints on the sly, and urbane city dwellers who remember past European travels, as well as Ignatov, Zuleikha’s husband’s killer. Ignatov is persuaded to remain in the settlement, as its commandant, and he stays because of his own political issues back in Kazan. Most important, there is Zuleikha’s son Yuzuf, born in the settlement, who develops an interest for art and learns to paint.

Yakhina’s writing is simple, albeit sprinkled with Tatar words (there’s a glossary). Yakhina herself has said that the novel is about how Zuleikha wakes up, opens her eyes to the world, and finds happiness, albeit a bitter one. Another is, again, Yakhina’s ability to use a simple structure and language to tell her story, all as she plants details that will have meaning later in the book.

Guzel Yakhina´s novel hits directly in the heart. It’s a powerful praise for love and tenderness in hell.

Ludmila Ulitskaya

There’s something that Guzel Yakhina succeeded to transmit with amazing, sharp exactness: women’s attitude towards love. Not towards the subject of love, but towards the love itself.

Anna Narinskaya, literary critic

Ludmila Ulitskaya's public lectures in Japan - November 2009

Featured titles

Palisandria (Astrophobia), a novel by Sasha Sokolov (1985)

Zuleikha Opens Her Eyes, a novel by Guzel Yakhina (2015)