The "reality novel" A Poet and Bin-Laden set in Central Asia at the turn of the 21st century against a swirling backdrop of Islamic fundamentalism in the Ferghana Valley and beyond, gives a first-hand account on the militants and Taliban's internal life. The novel begins on the eve of 9/11, with the narrator's haunting description of the airplane attack on the Twin Towers as seen on TV while he is on holiday in Central Asia; and tells the story of an Uzbek poet Belgi, who was disappointed in the authoritarian regime in Uzbekistan and became a terrorist in the eyes of the world. His journey...
The "reality novel" A Poet and Bin-Laden set in Central Asia at the turn of the 21st century against a swirling backdrop of Islamic fundamentalism in ...
Named one of "the best Russian novels of the 21st Century," The Underground is the unforgettable story of an abandoned mixed-race boy navigating the wondrous and terrifying city of Moscow before the Soviet Union's collapse. "I am Moscow's underground son, the result of one too many nights on the town." So begins the story of Mbobo, the precocious 12-year-old narrator of this captivating novel by exiled Uzbek author and BBC journalist Hamid Ismailov. Born to a Siberian woman and an African athlete who came to compete in the 1980 Moscow Olympics, Mbobo must navigate the...
Named one of "the best Russian novels of the 21st Century," The Underground is the unforgettable story of an abandoned mixed-race boy naviga...
