The Devils’ Dance
£9.50
The Devils’ Dance brings to life the extraordinary culture of 19th century Turkestan, a world of lavish poetry recitals, brutal polo matches, and a cosmopolitan and culturally diverse Islam rarely described in western literature. Hamid Ismailov’s virtuosic prose recreates this multilingual milieu in a digressive, intricately structured novel, dense with allusion, studded with quotes and sayings, and threaded through with modern and classical poetry.
With this poignant, loving resurrection of both a culture and a literary canon brutally suppressed by a dictatorship which continues today, Ismailov demonstrates yet again his masterful marriage of contemporary international fiction and the Central Asian literary traditions, and his deserved position in the pantheon of both.
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Additional information
| Publisher | Tilted Axis Press (3 Mar. 2018) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Paperback | 200 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 1911284134 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1911284130 |
| Dimensions | 22 x 3.9 x 23.3 cm |
by OTJ
Two great (though dark) stories woven together, providing a fascinating insight into a place and periods of history I knew nothing about.
by Jonathan Stock
Some of the publicity claims a Game of Thrones affinity, but I didn’t get that myself, whether in terms of story-telling or in terms of use of language, and I’d say it’s at best a marketing-related distraction and even a disservice to the author (and translator). Maybe it’s more Thousand-and-one nights meets Solzhenitsyn? It’s a novel within a novel that provides an account of the imprisonment of Abdulla Qodiry, a real-life Uzbek novelist in the 1930s Soviet Union.
by Mrs Carol A Boorman
Great to be able to get an unusual read…ie. Uzbek writer….Well done Amazon…new copy..