Guzel Yakhina is one of the most remarkable Russian authors of our time. She is the finalist of Prix Médicis Prizw (France) and laureate of the Meilleur livre étranger (France), Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa Award (Italy), 8th Lu Xun Literature Award (China) and the Big Book literary award (Russia).

​

Yakhina's Convoy To Samarkand is an adventure novel set against the backdrop of the most troublesome historical period in Russian history, a modern Robinson Crusoe, a travel story of epic drama calibre. A series of scary adventures along the way of Deyev's train—getting food or medical supplies for his young charges, finding a nurse for a newborn baby, wandering in the desert, clashing with gangs—are written as if they were mythical events, but with extreme realism and vividness.  Deyev, like his legendary predecessors—Odysseus, Hercules, Jason— on his way opposes the absolute Evil, Death, coming to him in various guises—as Hunger, Disease, or Murder. At the same time, a constant suspense of their journey, a feeling of danger, and expectation of a tragedy, is masterfully seasoned by the author with unexpectedly touching and somewhat comic situations and mise-en-scenes.

​

Convoy to Samarkand was published in 2021 and has been translated into over 20 languages, with more than 2,000,000 copies sold worldwide.

 

"This is a rare book, one that transforms everyone who reads it. It conjures visions of Marco Polo’s journeys to an elusive, opulent East—a land of both abundance and savage cruelty. It’s a craving for warmth, for searing heat, for the mirage in the desert. And it’s a Robinsonade, a genre that promises salvation in the end."

 

Elena Kostyukovic, Literary critic and essayist