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Guzel Yakhina

Biography

Guzel Yakhina

Born in Kazan, Guzel Yakhina is a Russian author and screenwriter. She is the winner of the Big Book literary prize and the Yasnaya Polyana Literary Award. She has denounced Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, stating publicly that “This is not my war. I refuse to consider it mine.”

Guzel Yakhina

Books by Guzel Yakhina

Eisen
written by Guzel Yakhina, translated by Polly Gannon - Fiction, Historical Fiction

In EISEN, Guzel Yakhina turns her formidable historical imagination to the life of Sergei Eisenstein, the revolutionary filmmaker who reshaped cinema --- and was nearly crushed by the system he helped glorify. From the triumph of Battleship Potemkin to the torment of censorship, exile, and artistic compromise under Stalin, Yakhina traces Eisenstein’s life as a drama of creation under pressure. Moscow, Berlin, Paris and Mexico flicker past as art, politics, sexuality and power collide. Yakhina explores the cost of genius in an authoritarian world, the body as both instrument and battleground, and the impossible demand placed on artists to serve ideology without losing themselves.