ASIAN BOOK CHALLENGE 2022 - IN MAY IT'S THE "STANS"

THE STANS!



(Kazakhstan)

There are seven nations in the world all ending in "STAN" and they are geographically proximate.

AFGHANISTAN
PAKISTAN
KAZAKHSTAN
KYRGYZSTAN
TAJIKISTAN
TURKMENISTAN
UZBEKISTAN

Some possibles :

Kamila Shamsie
Mohsin Hamid
Nadeem Aslam
Khushwant Singh
Mohammed Hanif
Tehmina Durrani
Khaled Hosseini
Tamim Ansary
Atiq Rahimi
Homeira Qaderi
Chingiz Aitmatov
Mukhamet Shayakhmetov
Hamid Ismailov
Sadriddin Aini

What I will read :

So far pencilled in:
Hamid Ismailov
Khaled Hosseini
Nadeem Aslam

>4 PaulCranswick: I was impressed by Ismailov's The Dead Lake.

>5 amanda4242: I have a couple of him but will probably read The Devil's Dance.

The Kite Runner was my first choice.

I read Jamilia by Chingiz Aitmatov last year and really liked it, so I am going to try another one of his that was lent to me, The Place of the Skull.

Besides Jamilia, I would also recommend these two books from Pakistani authors:

The Wandering Falcon by Jamil Ahmad
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid

I have already read Khamila Shamsie's debut--In the City by the Sea for April and liked it, but not as much as her later works--a couple of which (Burnt Shadows and Home Fire) I loved.
I also plan/hope to read Moth Smoke by Mohsin Hamid, The Underground by Hamid Ismailov, and And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini. We'll see.

I jut finished Broken Verses yesterday for April's BAC. I plan to read The Kite Runner this month.

You can put them in both challenges for me, Carrie. Kamila Shamsie was born in Pakistan after all.

There was a point in Kite Runner when I slammed the book against the wall and it took me a while to pick it up again. Still glad I finished it. Loved a thousand splendid suns think I have and the mountains echoed somewhere on my shelves

Would like to read something from one pf the other 'stans' The Railway by Hamid Ismailov sounds very interesting so does The Day Lasts More than a Hundred Years

My "Stan" reading so far:

Kyrgyzstan--Short Stories by Chingiz Aitmatov, translated by James Riordan and Rahima Abduvalieva

Aitmatov's Jamilia is an excellent book that I really recommend. This collection of three stories I do not recommend: none of them are bad, but they are all so minor that I don't understand why anyone bothered to publish them together.

Pakistan--A God in Every Stone by Kamila Shamsie

This is one of those books that's hard to talk about because there's nothing either good or bad to make it stand out. It's a historical novel that starts at the beginning of World War One and then skips over to about a dozen years after the war. An English female archaeologist, a South Asian soldier, and the soldier's younger brother become entangled with historical events and drift through the narrative on a sea of inevitability. I enjoyed it enough while reading it, but it wasn't a hardship to set it down when I had errands to run.

Tajikistan--The Sandalwood Box: Folk Tales from Tadzhikistan translated by Katya Sheppard, illustrated by Hans Baltzer

I had planned on reading The Sands of Oxus for my Tajikistan selection and made an ILL request for it, but when I went to pick it up I discovered the lending library sent me the wrong book. After a couple of hours of searching for a substitute I managed to find this collection of stories on Open Library. It's a fun read and heavier on the clever heroines than most fairy tales, so I'm not too broken up about not getting to read my first pick.

Afghanistan--The Patience Stone by Atiq Rahimi, translated by Polly McLean

This one packs quite a punch! An unnamed woman confesses all of her secrets to her comatose husband while battle rages all around them. Beautiful in its unflinching rage.

Coming up:
Turkmenistan: The Tale of Aypi by Ak Welsapar
Uzbekistan: The Dancer from Khiva by Bibish
Kazakhstan: either Behind the Silk Curtain by Gulistan Khamzayeva or The Silent Steppe by Mukhamet Shayakhmetov

Im also going to be reading sovietistan because I love travel books and think this will be a good auxillary read to teach me about the different stans. Not going to count it for the challenge tho since the author is from Norwegian.

>13 amanda4242: Amanda, I am so impressed by your completist dedication!

>14 cindydavid4: I want to read that one too, Cindy. I bought it last month (or was it March?) in expectation of reading it to understand the region more.

>13 amanda4242: think I will try Jamilla as well

>15 PaulCranswick: oh good! gonna start it tomorrow

>16 cindydavid4: I read it a few years ago and it is a moving, sweet story.

My very dear friend who passed away a year tomorrow used the book to learn English. When I was clearing away her things after she passed I found her notebooks filled with pages of text she had copied from the book and passages underlined in the book itself.

It is a special book in that sense for me as I immediately call to mind her beautiful face.

>17 PaulCranswick: oh so sorry for your loss. that is indeed a special book, Im looking forward to reading it

I'll be picking up Hamid Ismailov like Paul. I have The Devil's Dance on the shelf. I read Manaschi last year: lots of falconry, reminded me I wanted to reread Helen Macdonald's book.

I went looking for another book I remembered reading that would fit this challenge. I learned that the author, Sara Suleri, very sadly died earlier this year. Her memoir of growing up in Lahore (Pakistan) is Meatless Days.

‘Our Postcolonial Proust’: Celebrated Pakistani-American Author Sara Suleri Is No More
https://www.thefridaytimes.com/2022/03/22/our-postcolonial-proust-celebrated-pak...

>20 charl08: That is sad, Charlotte - "Postcolonial Proust" is praise indeed.

I used to own The Patience Stone but can't find it now. So I just requested it from the library and I noticed there is also a film version so I requested that as well. It looks to be a short book so I will watch the film after I read the book and hope not to be disappointed.

I am also planning on reading The Kite Runner - not the most original pick, perhaps, but it's long been on my "been meaning to read" list, so I may as well get to it.

We'll see where my reading this month takes me. I just put on hold at the library The Bad Muslim Discount by Pakistani-American author Syed Masood.

I most highly recommend:
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Turkmenistan--The Tale of Aypi by Ak Welsapar, translated by W. M. Coulson

Last year I read Welsapar's The Revenge of the Foxes and couldn't decide if I disliked it because it was a bad translation, I'm missing specific cultural references, or because I don't like the work. After reading The Tale of Aypi I've decided I just don't like Welsapar.

I'm still finishing up The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree for last month, but am planning on giving The Reluctant Fundamentalist a go.

I have The underground by Hamid Ismailov (Uzbekistan) and Before she sleeps by Bina Shah (Pakistan) lined up to read this month.

Some authors and books I hope to get to this month;
Moth Smoke by Mohsin Hamid
How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid
The Patience Stone by Atiq Rahimi
Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie
The Golden Legend by Nadeem Aslam

I am really enjoying reading sovietistan a travelogue about the region, Very well written, and an easy read - lots of humous scenes like when the author is offered a traditional drink the camel milkwas defiitely spoiled, with the usual result, or spending hours watching a horse show only to see the president fall off her horse and was m ade to delete the photo from the phone. but it was maddening how the people were treated by two tyrans since independence.not much has changed since the soviet (error, um i mean era, but it still works) and the author was able to discover the areas fame from the silk road so long ago. but thatss so way in the past. I wonder if its any easier in the other four stans. We will see but I don't have much hope....

If I can fit it in with everything else I need to read, I'll read The Kite Runner. It's been on my radar for many years.

I just finished Sovietistan and it is undoubtly one of the best travel/history books Ive read in a long while. Honestly I was expecting a slog but I neednt worry, I was in very good hands.
The writing is easy and interesting and and rarely dry; I had trouble putting the book down it was such a page turner (the only slog was a chapter about the great game, but it was important history to make sense of what happened in this region.)

The author takes us on an amazing trip through these countries; their cultures their politics their people struggling to survive. What I esp loved about it is her connection to the past, whether it was the Soviet era or the days of Ghengis Kahn and Tamerlane or the days of the silk road - she makes it all come to life. She brings up serious issues: famine, forced migration, dictators, nuclear testing, disappearing lakes, bride kidnapping, human rights; poverty yet she is able to add humor or at least irony to her observations. Also appreciated the excellent maps (didn't realize that the borders look like a child's scribbles), i referred to them frequently, and appreciated her interviews with regular people. I highly recommend this book and I am looking forward to reading novels from these countries for this challenge. .5*

Completed How to get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid. Pakistan author. This is the third book by this author for me and not my favorite. Written in the format of a self help book.

>31 cindydavid4: I am reading it too, Cindy and have an almost equal positivity towards it.

Just received The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years which will be my next read.

I wasn't very impressed with Before she sleeps. It's set in a post-climate disaster, post-nuclear war, post-woman-killing virus, South West Asia, in a sustainably built city created from the ashes. Green City is an oasis in a devastated world - but after generations of sex-selection for boys and the virus which decimated the female population, there is a need to maximise the number of children born. Each woman must take multiple husbands, chosen for her by the state, and devote her life to bearing children. As always in these novels, there is an underground organisation of women who have managed to escape this fate, who have managed to gain protection from influential men in the city in return for providing non-sexual comfort. The story is told by multiple narrators, firstly Sabine, Lin and Rupa who all dwell in the underground community, then with some male voices added as the plot expands. Unfortunately this isn't a setting that stands up to much scrutiny. I had a lot of questions about how some of the societal changes - mainly that this is now a post-religious society - occurred. Would these powerful men really be content with non-sexual contact with women when not having regular sex with their wives? The streets of Green City feel empty - where is everyone? Surely escaping women would stand out a mile when leaving their homes to join the underground? Just how many women are part of it anyway? That's before the discrepancies in the plot, which feels very thin. Some things seem unnecessarily complicated, others too convenient. I finished the book because I wanted to know what happened to the characters, but ultimately this was a pale shadow of the Handmaid's Tale.

>34 cindydavid4: I know it's not for everyone, but The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years has a special place in my heart. There are scenes in this book I think I'll remember all my life, and Karanar the wayward camel is one of my favourite animal characters ever!

Oh I am enjoying it quite a bit. Had no idea about the sci fi component - interested to see how he melds these two plots togther

Also just received Jamilia; probably finish tomorrow.

really enjoying the day lasts more than a hundred years esp the part with the funeral procession to the cemetery. Loved Yegide's thoughts about traditional prayers

"you simply did not shout to GOD why have you arranged things for men to be born and then die? Man has lived with this since the world began, altho he cannot accept it, he can become reconciled with it. These prayers had been unchanged since then and everything in them had stayed the same; one does not grumble in vain, but for in order for a man to be calm. These words, polished over thousands of years like bars of gold , were the last a living man had to say over the dead. That was the custom'

will be interested to see how the science fiction component gets meld with this tradition.

Finished Jamilia which I liked very much, but wish it didn't end quite so soon. Wanted to know what happened next

Finally started The Devil's Dance, but a bit nervous after having given up on The Dove's Necklace. Hoping this one is a bit less Hard Work. Has anyone read it?

I’ve read The Patience Stone by Atiq Rahimi. I liked it.

>31 cindydavid4: I picked up Sovietistan yesterday, for this challenge and because I was pretty curious about these countries myself. I've read the first segment from each country so far and it's incredibly interesting! At first it did appear to be a slog with smaller print in my edition but it is not, it draws you in and the author seems to be an inquisitive and adventurous woman who can tell a good story while informing the reader.

Last night, I finished reading The Patience Stone and immediately, watched the dvd film of it. An interesting premise, that of a woman whose husband lies comatose with a bullet lodged in his neck. As she tends him, she talks to him, speaking of her deepest secrets and feelings, something she has never done in their 10 years of marriage. The story is ostensibly in war-torn Afghanistan (or somewhere unnamed) where snipers are shooting all around them as the story unfolds. They are devout Muslim, and as a woman, her *voice* is never really heard. Folklore has it that the *patience stone* listens and absorbs all one's secrets until it can absorb no more, then it explodes. The breathing but not really alive husband is her patience stone (they are both unnamed throughout the story).

I will admit that the ending was bizarre and for me, anyhow, not really satisfying at all. It was a quick read, though.

review of a day lasts more than a year is heere https://www.librarything.com/topic/341309#n7840259

>6 PaulCranswick: >19 charl08: >39 charl08: I'm approaching half-way on The Devils' Dance and it is, so far, not hard to take for a 'time in soviet custody' story. In fact up to now the hardest part is related to the constant couplets and other translated poetry that lards the book within a book. It's been very much a Scheherazade experience, if you add on the trauma that heroine must have undergone for herself and her sister while under threat of death. And I checked, plov is the Uzbek for pilaf.

I wasn't sure if I should count this book now, rather than in Diaspora December, but since Paul lists the author at the top of the thread, I'm going with it! Shamsie was born in Pakistan.



Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie
Published 2009, 370 p.

Hiroko Tanaka is a young woman in love with a German dreamer who longs for a world where nationality ceases to define identity. Unfortunately, Hiroko will witness the devastating effects of nationalism over and over again throughout her life. From the the atomic bombing of Nagasaki in 1945 to the partition of India in 1947 to the proxy cold war fought in Afghanistan to the aftermath of the September 11th bombing in the US, Hiroko and her family struggle to survive in a world that is always being defined as us vs them.

Burnt Shadows is beautifully written with a compelling storyline. The characters are almost always outsiders in some way, struggling to define who they are and where they belong. Misunderstandings and betrayals carry consequences that play out over decades and sometimes generations, but so too does familial loyalty and love. Highly recommended.

>46 labfs39: I am currently reading Shamsie's A God in Every Stone and very much enjoying it. I will have to see if I can track down a copy of Burnt Shadows. Thanks for the review, Lisa!

>46 labfs39: I have this on the shelf, must pick it up, it sounds like my cup of tea.

I just finished The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, which has been on my "been meaning to read" list for a long time & this seemed like the perfect opportunity. No spoilers, but I'll just say it's an intensely personal story in which Afghanistan's struggles through invasion, war, civil war and the Taliban takeover provide a dramatic backdrop.

>49 ChrisG1: there was a point early in the book when I was so angry with the young narrator that I threw the book against the wall. Fortunately I picked it back up and finished it and loved it. That section was so hard to read.

>50 cindydavid4: I'm assuming this is a response to my post about The Kite Runner, because, if so, I know exactly where you're talking about.

oops, I forgot to tag the post number; yes it was a response to your post. Ive read his book a thousand splendid suns which is a different book but just as well written. Liked it very much

I finished The Devils' Dance and while I can't say I enjoyed it exactly or feel is was outstanding it was in no way a waste of time, full of different views of and on that portion of the 'stans in the 1930's and 1830's.

>53 quondame: Glad to hear it: I've been distracted by (another) book group book this week but hope to make a proper dent in it this weekend. I think for me having some uninterrupted time with it will help.

>46 labfs39: I read Burnt Shadows many years ago--it was my first introduction to Shamsie--and I loved it. Parts of it have stuck with me all this time, the mark of a memorable book. It's so nice to see another fan.

(edited to fix the post reference)

>52 cindydavid4: That is now on my TBR list!

>49 ChrisG1: >50 cindydavid4: cindydavid4

From my recent Kite Runner review: Horror after Horror, Betrayal after Betrayal, Lies, Guilt...

>57oh my just read your review: "

"Though carefully and dramatically crafted, this is the kind of book that makes me think it is long past time for us to re-cross the African Savannas and hoist ourselves back up into the trees.

Horror after horror, Betrayal after Betrayal, Lies, Guilt, and Grief...after...."

totally agree, its a rough book. His writing tho hooked me and wouldn't let go. I still have images in my head from it and they cant be erased.

AFGHANISTAN:



The patience stone: sang-e saboor by Atiq Rahimi, translated from the French by Polly McLean
Published 2008, 141 p.

An unnamed woman attends to her husband in a room of their house somewhere in Afghanistan. He has been shot in the neck by a fellow fighter and is unconscious. Shells from tanks fall around their house and gunfire erupts even during a purported ceasefire. At first the woman is tender in her ministrations and prays continually for his deliverance. But as the days pass with no change in her husband, she begins to find relief in confessing all her secrets to him, as though he were the fabled patience stone, which according to Persian folklore absorbs all the speaker's grievances until it explodes, taking all the speaker's worries with it.

Although the writing is very sparse (some have likened it to a play script), the emotions evoked by the woman's revelations are complex and layered. Like many Afghani woman, her life has been subjugated to the strictures of her father, her husband, society, and religious politics. Her attempts to exert control over her life, even by giving voice to her feelings and thoughts, have met with violence, so she has learned to remain silent. It is only now, with her husband unconscious and hostage to her ministrations, does she feel free to reveal her innermost secrets.

>59 labfs39: - What did you think of the ending? I borrowed the book and the film from the library and watched the dvd right after finishing the book. The movie was very true to the book but I found the ending bizarre in both. I wrote about it up there in >42 jessibud2:

>60 jessibud2: I found it startling, but not completely unexpected. There was something inevitable about her husband having the final say, I felt. It's the nature of the times there and her situation. I saw no way she could escape (run off with the teenage soldier? become a prostitute like her aunt? marry one of her husband's brothers?) How do you feel it should have ended?

>61 labfs39: - Sorry, I don't know how to put comments behind a spoiler. I am not really sure I even thought about how it would end but it just felt like *magical realism* or something like that. Not realistic at all and while I certainly never thought it would have a happy ending, I just felt that it was not believable at all, either. My instinctive response was, "Seriously?"

>62 jessibud2: It did have a surreal feel.

To use spoiler tags, just type {spoiler} the text you want to hide and then {/spoiler}, but using angle brackets, not curly ones.

Just finished my book for the MAy challenge Sovietistan, here's the review...
Sovietistan by Erika Fatland: A Journey Through Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan (2019)
This is a combination travel and history book about these five specific countries in central Asia. The author is a brave Nordic woman who travelled to the area in two separate trips around 2013 and 14. It was a good introduction for me as reader who before reading the book, had very little knowledge about the area. It’s a very readable book, if not all inclusive. These countries all have threads that tie them together as formerly being part of the USSR, which has an effect on how they are governed today while each country is in the process of forging their own new identity now as independent nations. Ecological, social, political, and economic insight is also explored with its consequences, for good or for bad, on the population. There is rich history here, there are also historical lessons to be learned. Many topics are covered, the silk road, nomads of the steppes, the drying up of the Aral Sea, people persevering in the face of steep odds, use/misuse of the environment, exploration of the outcomes of government forced programs on the population, and the list goes on. I found it an enlightening read.

I managed to hit the last two countries before the end of the month!

Kazakhstan--Behind the Silk Curtain by Gulistan Khamzayeva

This one's a bit different then the other books mentioned here, being the reminiscences of the wife of a Kazakhstani diplomat who followed her husband to his many postings. Khamzayeva relates her family's culture shock, but always emphasizes how being adaptable and respectful of others has enriched all of their lives. I do wish Khamzayeva had worked closely with an editor because she has a tendency to wander from her point, but this was generally an interesting read.

Uzbekistan--The Dancer from Khiva: One Muslim Woman's Quest for Freedom by Bibish, translated by Andrew Bromfield

God awful. First, the title is very misleading: Bibish's dancing is only discussed in a handful of pages and religion gets two very brief mentions. Bibish's style is infantile and her actions make her sound naive and gullible to the point of stupidity. Avoid this book.

Read Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie. This is my second book by the author and I liked this one more.

I've not participated in the previous month challenge as I did not have Iranian books on my shelves, but this month I read (or rather skimmed through) No space for further burials by Feryal Ali Gauhar, a Pakistani female author writing about Afghanistan.
It was unrealistic and too gloom for me, but at least, it's out from my "to be read" shelves... I hope I'll get luckier with my picks for next month!

I read The underground by Hamid Ismailov who is Uzbek. The book is set in Moscow and narrated by the illegitimate son of a Russian woman and an African man. As such he is an outsider, always conspicuous, never accepted. His tells his life in an almost dreamlike narrative from beyond the grave, showing us scenes from his 12 years of life in Moscow, structured around the stations of the metro. I'm sure there were a lot of references that I missed, and I often found the book confusing, but the parts I did understand were very powerful.

>68 Sakerfalcon: I have that one checked out from the library but unfortunately could not get it read this month. I will still read it in another month.

>69 AnneDC: I will be very interested to see what you think of it!

Although the month is over, I thought I would add this review for those who might still be reading books from the Stans.



A Thousand Rooms of Dream and Fear by Atiq Rahimi, translated from the Dari by Sarah Maguire and Yama Yari
Published 2002, English translation 2006, 152 p.

A man wakes up beaten and bloody in the sewer beside the road unsure of who he is or how he got there. Over the next 24 hours his memory comes back in bits and pieces, told in reverse chronological order in alternating chapters with the present. Within the span of a few days, the life of an ordinary young man is destroyed during the violent, hopeless period of coups and invasion that defined the 1970s in Afghanistan. A grim but moving story of loss and unfulfilled hope.

This is the second book I've read by Atiq Rahimi. The first, The Patience Stone, was translated from the French, this one from the Dari. Both stories depict lives ruined by violence and upheaval, and end without hope. Both are short and told in quick, simple language that nonetheless carries emotional impact. I have one more on hold at the library.

>54 charl08:

The lure of a lost manuscript is one of humanity's eternal temptations. Our ancestor Adam's first poem; the Mushaf of Fatima, daughter of the Prophet; Ibn-Sina's Eastern Logic; Yassawi's secret aphorisms... and these were just the Islamic works. If you included the lost books of other cultures, the list would number thousands, from St Margaret's gospel to the history of Genghis Khan.

I finished The Devil's Dance, appreciate the nudge this challenge gave me to pick this up from my shelves. One of the reasons I bought it was a relationship with an Uzbek refugee family through volunteering. If I had read this book to find out about contemporary Uzbek life though, I'd have been disappointed, as the nearest it gets is the 1930s. Two parallel stories: in one a (real life) Uzbek author, Qodiriy, is accused of 'nationalism' by the Stalinist state and put in jail. In the other, the author recreates his latest novel. The novel's plot centres on the wife of a corrupt leader, who is also imprisoned against her will (but in a harem). The two stories work well, but I found it quite a dense read (similar to reading Orham Pamuk for me).

I've read a few prison narratives and find them fascinating, I think this one stands up well.

As if interested to see the effect of his words, Trigulov fell silent for a while. Abdulla hid behind his smoke and tried to guess what lay behind all this.

'Don't think, Qodiriy, that this has any connection to real life. It's only something I've made up. But Abdulla was well aware of the effect that the 'made-up' could have on real life. You could surrender to inspiration and write about the most unbelievable things, and five or ten years down the line, this same 'made-up' thing would turn up in your life.

Earth and Ashes by Atiq Rahimi, translated from the Dari by Erdağ M. Göknar
Published 2000, English translation 2002, 81 p.

Earth and Ashes was Rahimi's first novel, and the first film that he directed. It's the story of Dastaguir and his grandson, who have been displaced and are waiting for a ride into the Karkar coal mine region where Dastaguir's son, Murad, works. Dastaguir has bad news to bring to Murad, and over the course of the novella we learn what that news is. This is the third work by Rahimi that I've read, and I've liked them all. Some reviewers have written that his books feel script-like, and I can understand their point. But the tradeoff is that his writing is very cinematic; I can visualize the settings and characters as though I had seen them.

Rahimi was born and raised in Afghanistan, but fled when the Soviets invaded. He was granted political asylum in France and attended the Sorbonne. Taking a break from producing documentaries for French television, in 2000 Rahimi wrote Earth and Ashes, which was a bestseller in Europe and South America. He subsequently directed a movie version of the book, and it was awarded a prize at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival.

Uzbekistan--Ballad of the Stars by G. Altov and Valentina Zhuravlyova, translated by Roger DeGaris

Altov's three stories are dreck, with characters that exist only to spout Altov's weird problem solving system. Zhuravlyova's three stories are far superior: she's also touting Altov's system, but her characters sound like actual human beings and she's capable of coming up with actual plots for her stories.

The collection ends with a novella credited to both authors that is much stronger than any of Altov's solo stories, but weaker than Zhuravlyova's stories.

I'm counting this one for Uzbekistan because Altov was born there. He spent a good portion of his life in Azerbaijan, where Zhuravlyova was born, but Azerbaijan doesn't really fit in anywhere.