My Dreadful Body
Russia

My Dreadful Body

by Egana Djabbarova

Identity & Belonging Literary Fiction Fiction 2023

Summary

In My Dreadful Body, Egana Djabbarova explores what it means to grow up as a woman in a traditional Azerbaijani family in Russia, where a woman’s body is shaped by cultural expectations, religious beliefs, and the prospect of marriage. As the narrator develops a mysterious neurological condition that causes pain, involuntary movements, and speech difficulties, her body becomes both a source of suffering and a lens through which she examines her identity.

Organised into chapters devoted to different body parts, the novel weaves together intimate memories, family traditions, and reflections on gender, illness, and belonging. The narrator confronts the rules imposed on women across generations, as well as the cultural tensions of living between Azerbaijani and Russian identities. Lyrical and deeply personal, this debut novel explores how physical vulnerability can challenge social expectations and open a path towards self-determination.

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Country
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About the author
Egana Djabbarova
Egana Djabbarova

Egana Djabbarova, born in 1992 in Yekaterinburg, Russia, into an Azerbaijani family, is a poet, essayist, and scholar. Her writing explores the intersections of gender, cultural identity, the body, and belonging. Before publishing My Dreadful Body, her debut novel, she had already written several collections of poetry. The book draws on the experience of growing up between Russian society and Azerbaijani family traditions, examining how inherited expectations shape women’s lives and their relationships with their bodies. Djabbarova wrote the novel while living in Taipei between 2022 and 2023. In 2024, she left Russia because of her LGBTQ activism and opposition to the war in Ukraine and subsequently settled in Hamburg, Germany.

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Details
Published
2023
Author
Egana Djabbarova