Novel about women's lack of rights, Salikhat, pulled from sale in Russia. A complaint was filed...

Novel about women's lack of rights, Salikhat, pulled from sale in Russia. A complaint was filed with the Investigative Committee over its “negative portrayal of Dagestan”

Natalya Yeletskaya's novel Salikhat, which tells the story of women's lives in Dagestan's patriarchal society, has been pulled from sale in Russia following complaints to the Investigative Committee and the Prosecutor General's Office, Verstka has found.

The publisher AST, which released the book, removed its page from its website, as did the Chitai-Gorod bookstore and the LitRes, Yandex Books, Stroki and LiveLib services. It is out of stock on Labirint and Wildberries. Only a few copies remain with individual sellers on Ozon, but they are being sold at significantly inflated prices.

Rumors that the book had been banned appeared on literary Telegram channels in late October. The author of one blog told Verstka that, as a bookseller, she had received a letter saying that sales of the novel “must be discontinued” “to comply with the requirements of Russian law”.

In April 2026, Miyasat Muslimova, chair of the Dagestan branch of the Union of Russian Writers, filed a complaint about Salikhat. She recorded a video appeal to the Investigative Committee and the Prosecutor General's Office, claiming that the novel depicts Dagestan as a place with no laws, where people constantly kill one another and women are beaten by their families.

“The horrors are intensified as if deliberately to provoke hatred and hostility toward the people living in this republic. This is a deliberate incitement of hostility between peoples,” Muslimova said.

💜The novel Salikhat tells the story of a 16-year-old girl from a Dagestani village whose father forces her to marry a widower against her will. The girl moves into a new home where “she will have to please not only her husband but also the other members of the household,” according to the book's description. Published in 2021, the book was shortlisted for the national Manuscript of the Year award.

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