The latest addition to my website is Rollan Seisenbayev‘s Мертвые бродят в песках (The Dead Wander in the Desert). The Aral Sea used to be the fourth largest lake in the world. As a result of Soviet activities, it virtually disappeared. This novel tells the story from the perspective of the Kazakhs who lived on … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Talasbek Asemkulov‘s Талтус (Полдень) (A Life at Noon). Talasbek Asemkulov is a Kazakh dombra player and has helped to revive the tradition, which had almost died, in Kazakhstan. This is an autobiographical novel. We follow the childhood and youth of Azhigerei, our hero, but we also learn of … Read more
I have just returned from two weeks in Central Asia, which was highly enjoyable and a lifelong dream but, from the literary point of view relatively disappointing. I found only three bookshops, the last two on the last day. The first was, somewhat surprisingly, in the middle of Khiva. (Khiva is essentially a preserved small … Read more
Continuing my reading of novels from countries that I have not yet read a novel from, the latest addition to my website is Mukhtar Auezov‘s Абай жолы (Abai). This is a novel by one of Kazakhstan’s foremost novelists, telling the story of one of Kazakhstan’s foremost poets. It is an excellent novel, recounting not only … Read more