Presented by Penn's Department of Russian and East European Studies

A dazzling debut novel about a young woman’s vexed coming of age in a traditional Azerbaijani community in Russia, grappling under the weight of Muslim patriarchal norms and a debilitating neurological condition. The mysterious affliction leaves her unable to control her muscles, plagued by pain and speech disorders, defying diagnosis. Addressing each body part with the scrupulousness of a medical researcher, the narrator explores memories, traditions, and taboos related to her physical self. In the process, a woman once destined for the role of a beautiful marriageable daughter comes to be perceived as damaged goods. With verbal elegance and poetic power, Egana Djabbarova unveils a hidden world in which illness unexpectedly facilitates her liberation. 

Egana Djabbarova, born in 1992 into an Azerbaijani family in Yekaterinburg, Russia, is a poet, essayist, and scholar. She is the author of several collections of poetry. Having been forced to flee Russia in 2024 because of her LGBTQ activism and opposition to the war in Ukraine, she lives in Hamburg, Germany.

Cosponsored by Wolf Humanities Center