Summary
Olga Grjasnova: The legal ambiguity of a marriage
Lejla always wanted only one thing: to dance. But after a scandal with a colleague at the Bolshoi Theater, her career as a professional ballerina becomes uncertain. Altaj is a psychiatrist who is afraid of intimacy after his first great love commits suicide. Altaj and Lejla enter into a fictitious marriage in order to please their families and maintain the appearance of a heteronormative family. After they move to Germany and try to make a new start in Berlin, they meet Jonoun, who after a failed marriage with an older man is no longer sure of her basic life principles. The entry of a third person into this seemingly ideal fictitious relationship forces Lejla and Altai to reconsider their own desires and to face the chaos of their mid-twenties and their own decisions that may mark the rest of their lives. In The Legal Ambiguity of a Marriage, Olga Grjasnova simultaneously outlines the insecurity of a generation that is currently in its mid-twenties, as well as the chaotic background in which their lives unfold, from the corruption and lawlessness of Azerbaijan to the ever-present racism and homophobia in the German capital, where the characters flee hoping for a better future, only to find despair and the devastating erosion of routine. The novel takes us from Azerbaijan through Moscow to Berlin and then back again to Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia, in a journey in which Leyla, Altaj and Jonoun will try to find themselves and at least some purpose in their lives.
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