The Path of Abay : Part One

by Mukhtar Auezov

A multivolume novel ‘The Path of Abay’ of a renowned Kazakh writer Mukhtar Auezov is a great piece of art of world literature of the last century. The main hero of the novel is a well-known person in Kazakhstan, an architect of Kazkah written drama and its first classic Abay Kunanbayev. The novel demonstrates a rough life of Kazakh people in the 19th century, when the nomadic way of life of the Kazakhs crashed down. The novel contains all the largeness and beauty of inner world of the Kazakh people. The novel besides Abay’s life shows traditions of the Kazakh people, such as matchmaking or observing by Kazakhs the funeral rites. Mukhtar Auezov’s work gives insight about Kazakhs’ everyday life and how they celebrate their holidays. Mukhtar Auezov managed to show a full-scale picture of the rough life of the Kazakh society of the 19th century so deeply that while reading the novel you can feel a wide spectrum of hopelessness and joy, delight and hate, love and despair.
Undoubtedly, the novel ‘The Path of Abay’ by Mukhtar Auezov is the noblest monuments of art, devoted to Abay.

300 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1953

About the author

Mukhtar Omarkhanuly Auezov (Kazakh: Мұхтар Омарханұлы Әуезов) (September 28, 1897 — June 27, 1961) was a Kazakh writer, a social activist, a Doctor of Philology, a professor and honored academic of the Soviet Union(1946). He was born on September 28, 1897 in the old town of Semey in Kaskabulak, where he spent all his childhood.
He grew up under the spiritual influence of the poet Abai. His father and grandfather Omarkhan Auez both highly revered the poet, a neighbor and friend of the family. His grandfather was a storyteller of folk tales, and taught his grandson to read and write, he also instilled within Mukhtar a love of literature, and the poetry of Abay.