About the book: 2024 / Leila is a sought-after expat, a person of peace and a free soul. Or maybe she is a “rootless cosmopolitan” of the 21st century, who wanders aimlessly around countries, worries about other people’s prejudices and loses touch with reality. The world around is moving towards more and more absurdity, until the heroine ends up locked in a clinic in the middle of the desert, where any of her statements are questioned and taught to “be normal.” But what if everything now is nonsense and often goes beyond what is acceptable? Will the heroine accept her abnormality, will she look for a way back to the old world, or will she try to change this one? She is also haunted by white dreams, in which she can neither move nor wake up... A novel at the intersection of genres, geographies and cultures, “Leila’s Travels” will show our world as it is. Even if someone just made it up. “What is modernity for us, for the heroine of the novel “Leila’s Travels” is the distant past or a parallel world, the reality of which she increasingly doubts. Leila was once different: an expat with a brilliant resume, career and life, a type of global nomad heroine that is rare in Russian-language literature. But all this turns into a vague memory - or fantasy? – when Leila wakes up in Dr. Nathanson’s closed clinic, hidden in the heart of the Palestinian desert. The world around her had never heard of the Holocaust or the terrorist attacks in France. Colonialism and racism reign here, which is opposed by the radical globalist movement. Its members want to win Leila over to their side, using her “memories” of another world as a source of inspiration to advance their goals, including through terrorist attacks (for example, repeating the attack on a French resort). However, Leila does not want to support violence, she is looking for peace - including from the white dreams that torment her, which do not allow her to forget that she is an eternal traveler, stuck at the crossroads of two worlds.” – Olga Breininger, writer, translator Leila’s Travels is a puzzle book that doesn’t come easily the first time. The author accurately captured the essence of modern art, supported it with comprehensive knowledge in the field of marketing and the social structure of life in the Middle East, and conveyed it through a seemingly phantasmagoric story. The book echoes what I have encountered in life, so the feeling of presence was especially strong. The novel captivates with the relevance of the questions raised and the depth of their understanding. At the same time, reading is easy and enjoyable. It turned out that it is not necessary to write about the day, to place people in disgusting conditions, terrible life situations in order to reveal their inner world, character, depth. And say something important about our world as a whole.” – Ekaterina Baginskaya, art critic Denmark Zhansi was born in 1985 in Tashkent, grew up in Kazan, lived and worked in Washington, Dubai, Moscow, Samarkand and St. Petersburg, visited 40 countries. Graduated from the Summer School of Writing at the University of Oxford, participant in Russian youth forums writers, resident of Peredelkin. Stories are published in the publications ArtPrive, Berlin.Berega, Kazan, Neva, NG-Ex libris, Prochletenie, Yunost. The texts were included in the short and long lists of the awards named after Dias Valeev, Fazil Iskander, FICTION35.