Central Asian Literatures in Translation – serie

The three novellas of Farewell, Aylis take place over decades of transition in a country that rather resembles modern-day Azerbaijan.In Yemen, a Soviet traveler takes an afternoon stroll and finds himself suspected of defecting to America. In Stone Dreams, an actor explores the limits of one man’s ability to live a moral life amid conditions of sociopolitical upheaval, ethnic cleansing, and petty professional intrigue. In A Fantastical Traffic Jam, those who serve the aging leader of a corrupt, oil-rich country scheme to stay alive. Farewell, Aylis, a new essay by the author that reflects on the political firestorm surrounding these novellas and his current situation as a prisoner of conscience in Azerbaijan, was commissioned especially for this Academic Studies Press edition.

Night (1934), the first novel of Abdulhamid Sulaymon o’g’li Cho’lpon’s unfinished dilogy of novels, Night and Day, gives readers a glimpse into the everyday struggles of men and women in Russian imperial Turkestan. More than just historical prose, Cho’lpon’s magnum opus reads as poetic elegy and turns on dramatic irony. Though it depicts the terrible fate of a young girl condemned to marry a sexual glutton, nothing is what it seems. Readers find themselves questioning the nature of women’s liberation, colonialism, resistance, and even the intentions of the author, whose life and sequel, Day, were lost to Stalinist terror.

Night and Day (1934), an unfinished dilogy by Uzbek author Abdulhamid Sulaymon o’g’li Cho’lpon, gives readers a glimpse into the everyday struggles of men and women in Russian imperial Turkestan. More than just historical prose, Cho’lpon’s magnum opus reads as poetic elegy and turns on dramatic irony. Though Night, the first and only extant book of the dilogy, depicts the terrible fate of a young girl condemned to marry a sexual glutton, nothing is what it seems. Readers find themselves questioning the nature of Russian colonialism, resistance to it, and even the intentions of the author, whose life and the second book of his dilogy, Day, were lost to Stalinist terror.

The three novellas of Farewell, Aylis take place over decades of transition in a country that rather resembles modern-day Azerbaijan.In Yemen, a Soviet traveler takes an afternoon stroll and finds himself suspected of defecting to America. In Stone Dreams, an actor explores the limits of one man’s ability to live a moral life amid conditions of sociopolitical upheaval, ethnic cleansing, and petty professional intrigue. In A Fantastical Traffic Jam, those who serve the aging leader of a corrupt, oil-rich country scheme to stay alive. Farewell, Aylis, a new essay by the author that reflects on the political firestorm surrounding these novellas and his current situation as a prisoner of conscience in Azerbaijan, was commissioned especially for this Academic Studies Press edition.

Amid ethnic violence, political corruption, and petty professionalintrigue, an artist tries to live free of lies.Set during the last years of the Soviet Union, StoneDreams tells the story of Azerbaijani actor Sadai Sadygly, who landsin a Baku hospital while trying to protect an elderly Armenian man from a gangof young Azerbaijanis. Something of a modern-day Don Quixote, Sadai has longbattled the hatred and corruption he observes in contemporary Azerbaijanisociety. Wandering in and out of consciousness, he revisits his hometown, theancient village of Aylis, where Christian Armenians and Muslim Azeris oncelived peacefully together, and dreams of making a pilgrimage of atonement toArmenia. Stone Dreams is a searing, painful meditation onthe ability of art and artists—of individual human beings—to make change in theworld.

In this joint volume of Caucausian fiction, two friends from opposing sides of the unresolved Georgian-Abkhaz conflict join forces to craft a poignant anti-war narrative that spans borders and transcends political divides.After finding themselves on opposing sides of a war-torn region, Guram Odisharia and Daur Nachkebia, once comrades in the Writers' Union, chose to collaborate and publish their respective novels under one cover in a powerful literary endeavor that’s now available in English. The President’s Cat from Georgian writer Guram Odisharia paints a vivid picture of Sukhumi, a once-exotic city-resort marred by the horrors of war. Against the backdrop of this surreal conflict, Odisharia's characters navigate the chaos with raw, palpable humanity.In Daur Nachkebia’s The Shore of Night, the novel’s protagonist begins a soul-searching journey to understand the profound impact of conflict on human life after finding the diary of a friend who died in the war. Delving into the human experience and psyche against the backdrop of the Soviet empire’s collapse and the brutal war in Abkhazia, it explores the struggle to maintain individuality and expand personal horizons despite the confines of society. Exploring real tragedies of individuals caught in the zone of conflict, the nuances of peace and war in the South Caucasus, and the prospects of reconciliation in post-conflict regions, the collection Two Novels from the Caucasus is a testament to the enduring power of literature to bridge divides and illuminate universal truths.