Guzel Yakhina was born and raised in Kazan, graduated from the faculty of foreign languages, and is studying at the screenwriting Department of the Moscow film school. Published in the magazines "Neva", "Siberian lights", "October". The novel "Zuleikha opens her eyes" begins in the winter of 1930 in a remote Tatar village. Zuleikha, a peasant woman, along with hundreds of other migrants, is sent in a hot-water car along the eternal convict route to Siberia.
The dense peasants and Leningrad intellectuals, the declassed element and criminals, Muslims and Christians, pagans and atheists, Russians, Tatars, Germans, Chuvash-all will meet on the banks of the Angara river, daily defending their right to life against the taiga and the ruthless state. Dedicated to all the dispossessed and resettled.