Offended Sensibilities chronicles a series of sudden deaths that occur among officials of a provincial Russian town. The events in the plot relate to the notorious recent law banning forms of expression that "offend the sensibilities" of religious believers. With this novel, Ganieva moves beyond the Dagestani setting and themes of her previous writing to address contemporary themes such as nationalism, Orthodox religiosity, sexuality, and political corruption. She addresses these weighty issues with a light touch and at times rollicking sense of humor that will keep the reader turning the pages. This timely, entertaining and thought-provoking novel can be read as an allegory for the current political, social, religious, and cultural climate in Russia today.
Author
Alisa Ganieva (or Ganiyeva; Russian: Алиса Аркадьевна Ганиева) is a Russian author, writing short prose and essays. In 2009, she was awarded the Debut literary prize for her debut novel Salaam, Dalgat!, published using the pseudonym of Gulla Khirachev. Ganieva was born in Moscow in an Avar family but moved with her family to Dagestan, where she lived in Gunib and later attended school in Makhachkala. In 2002 she moved back to Moscow and graduated from the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute. She works as a literary critic for the Nezavisimaya Gazeta daily. She won the Debut literary prize, the under-25 competition for authors writing in Russian, in 2009 for Salaam, Dalgat!. The identity of the author, who published it pseudonymously, was only discovered at the award ceremony. The novel describes the everyday life of Dagestani youth in the cities and shows the decay of traditional life and their difficult relations with Islam, the traditional religion of Dagestanis. The characters use the "Dagestani Russian", a pidgin version of Russian, to communicate, the first instance when this was presented in a literary work. In 2012, Ganieva published her second novel, Holiday Mountain, also set in Dagestan. In 2014, it was translated to German. In 2015 the Italian and the american translations came out. The last one published by the Deep Vellum Publishing House (USA) is called "The Mountain And The Wall". Ganieva spoke about the book to the audience of the London bureau of the Voice Of Russia radio. In April 2015 her new novel "The Bride And The Bridegroom" was released in Russia and is already listed for the major literary awards. She also published short stories and fairy tales. She has received a number of literary awards for her fiction. In June 2015 Ganieva was listed by The Guardian as one of the most talented and influential young people living in Moscow.[
