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The Dead Wander in the Desert
From Kazakhstan’s most celebrated author comes his powerful and timely English-language debut about a fisherman’s struggle to save the Aral Sea, and its way of life, from man-made ecological disaster.
Unfolding on the vast grasslands of the steppes of Kazakhstan before its independence from the USSR, this haunting novel limns the struggles of the world through the eyes of Nasyr, a simple fisherman and village elder, and his resolute son, Kakharman. Both father and son confront the terrible future that is coming to the poisoned Aral Sea.
Once the fourth-largest lake on earth, it is now an impending environmental catastrophe. Starved of water by grand Soviet agricultural schemes, the sea is drying out, and the land around it is turning into a salt desert. The livelihood of the fishermen who live on its shores is collapsing. Vanishing with the water is a whole way of life. Despite overwhelming odds, Kakharman wages a battle against an indifferent bureaucracy, while Nasyr looks to Allah for guidance. Without the support of neighbors, who have lost hope, Kakharman must travail alone to rescue what literally gives them life. Even as the consequences mount, his quixotic fight proves more daunting. Even the sea itself seems to roil with distress.
In the face of despair, the unwavering convictions of these soulful individuals offer hope. Rollan Seisenbayev takes readers on a cautionary, elegiac, and deeply compassionate journey into what it means to be human—to care and to fight against devastating odds. May humankind heed his warning cry.
Unfolding on the vast grasslands of the steppes of Kazakhstan before its independence from the USSR, this haunting novel limns the struggles of the world through the eyes of Nasyr, a simple fisherman and village elder, and his resolute son, Kakharman. Both father and son confront the terrible future that is coming to the poisoned Aral Sea.
Once the fourth-largest lake on earth, it is now an impending environmental catastrophe. Starved of water by grand Soviet agricultural schemes, the sea is drying out, and the land around it is turning into a salt desert. The livelihood of the fishermen who live on its shores is collapsing. Vanishing with the water is a whole way of life. Despite overwhelming odds, Kakharman wages a battle against an indifferent bureaucracy, while Nasyr looks to Allah for guidance. Without the support of neighbors, who have lost hope, Kakharman must travail alone to rescue what literally gives them life. Even as the consequences mount, his quixotic fight proves more daunting. Even the sea itself seems to roil with distress.
In the face of despair, the unwavering convictions of these soulful individuals offer hope. Rollan Seisenbayev takes readers on a cautionary, elegiac, and deeply compassionate journey into what it means to be human—to care and to fight against devastating odds. May humankind heed his warning cry.
483 pages, Paperback
First published September 17, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
June 27, 2022
The Dead Wander in the Desert is set in Kazakhstan mostly in the 1980s when it was part of the Soviet Union. It is quite the unexpected sweeping epic novel that includes elements of Kazakh folklore, world news headlines, and environmental assessment. It is focused on the impact of Russian bureaucratic decisions to divert water from two rivers that previously fed the Aral Sea. Seisenbayev structures this story around the lives of a fictional family – fisherman Nasyr, his wife Korlan, their son Kakharman, and their grandson, Beshir. Nasyr is initially a fisherman but when the sea recedes, he is appointed mullah. Kakharman attempts to prevent this disaster with help from a Russian scientist, but their efforts are in vain. The story features many real people in history.
One may call it environmental or historical fiction, but it is so much more. It is infused with Kazakh culture and history, and the way environmental decisions have changed their way of life. It repeats the stories told in the past by the Kazakh equivalent of bards. It is not a quick or easy read. It contains dream sequences and small elements of magical realism. Animals of the region are prominently featured. I had never read a Kazakh author before, or even a book set in Kazakhstan, so it was a jumping off point for me to research the history of this region. This book was originally published in 2002 in Russian. I read the 2019 translation to English by John Farndon and Olga Nakston.
Seisenbayev has crafted an ambitious story that relates the many unsuccessful efforts to fight against damaging policies and callous disregard for their ramifications. It is a tragedy for both the characters and the environment. It is long and includes a large cast. It contains excerpts from religious texts, poetry, philosophy, and political commentary. I appreciated learning more about our world and think this book deserves a wider audience. I consider it a modern classic.
Memorable passages:
“If the officials of Kazakhstan and the rest of Central Asia had sat at the same table and debated intelligently, they could’ve come to a decision and saved the sea. But now what? Each republic uses the wealth of the earth as if it’s their own property. We are not thinking about our children, not thinking about tomorrow. Everything is today, everything is now, now, now.”
“Now in the fog of his memory, the old man saw the shadowy figures moving through the murk like the figures on the hills. There are many of them. They’ve been walking through the sands for a long time now—from the east to the south and to the west, into the cities, where they hope to escape starvation. Wretched, hungry, and thirsty, many fall and cannot get up. But nobody stops. Nobody pays attention. The dying don’t plead for help. They know there’s no help for them.”
“For centuries, they were happy to have the sea in their souls and in their hands. The fishermen were happy there was a sea, and the sea was happy there were fishermen. That’s how it was from time immemorial. So you can only imagine the depth of sorrow drowning the few coastal auls. It wasn’t wealth and possessions they had been robbed of. It wasn’t even their livelihoods and daily bread. It was their very souls.”
One may call it environmental or historical fiction, but it is so much more. It is infused with Kazakh culture and history, and the way environmental decisions have changed their way of life. It repeats the stories told in the past by the Kazakh equivalent of bards. It is not a quick or easy read. It contains dream sequences and small elements of magical realism. Animals of the region are prominently featured. I had never read a Kazakh author before, or even a book set in Kazakhstan, so it was a jumping off point for me to research the history of this region. This book was originally published in 2002 in Russian. I read the 2019 translation to English by John Farndon and Olga Nakston.
Seisenbayev has crafted an ambitious story that relates the many unsuccessful efforts to fight against damaging policies and callous disregard for their ramifications. It is a tragedy for both the characters and the environment. It is long and includes a large cast. It contains excerpts from religious texts, poetry, philosophy, and political commentary. I appreciated learning more about our world and think this book deserves a wider audience. I consider it a modern classic.
Memorable passages:
“If the officials of Kazakhstan and the rest of Central Asia had sat at the same table and debated intelligently, they could’ve come to a decision and saved the sea. But now what? Each republic uses the wealth of the earth as if it’s their own property. We are not thinking about our children, not thinking about tomorrow. Everything is today, everything is now, now, now.”
“Now in the fog of his memory, the old man saw the shadowy figures moving through the murk like the figures on the hills. There are many of them. They’ve been walking through the sands for a long time now—from the east to the south and to the west, into the cities, where they hope to escape starvation. Wretched, hungry, and thirsty, many fall and cannot get up. But nobody stops. Nobody pays attention. The dying don’t plead for help. They know there’s no help for them.”
“For centuries, they were happy to have the sea in their souls and in their hands. The fishermen were happy there was a sea, and the sea was happy there were fishermen. That’s how it was from time immemorial. So you can only imagine the depth of sorrow drowning the few coastal auls. It wasn’t wealth and possessions they had been robbed of. It wasn’t even their livelihoods and daily bread. It was their very souls.”
October 7, 2021
In the village, crazy Kyzbala’s dog sat in the middle of the yard, lifted its head, and howled. A sinister howl. An omen not just for one dead but for ten. In Karaoi, the dogs that normally reacted to even the faintest sound fell silent, afraid, as if crazy Kyzbala’s dog was burying not only people but every living creature in the world.
This dystopian saga recounting the struggle of Kazakh fisherman-turned-mullah Nasyr and his son Kakharman to persuade Soviet bureaucrats to reverse ill-conceived irrigation schemes that were destroying the Aral Sea is not an easy or enjoyable read, but it is a timely and important read. Lest it be mistaken for merely an anti-Soviet screed, periodic news briefs list offenses against the environment in the form of nuclear tests, deforestation, acid rain, chemical leaks, and oil spills around the globe. Seisenbayev is not above hitting the reader on the head with his message, but I found it integral to the narrative and not off-putting. The novel is also rich in Kazakh history and culture, with extensive helpful footnotes.
What a fool was Man who descended from Adam and Eve! How foolish and arrogant. Long ago, he stopped respecting Nature as a mother and began to force her to his will, attacking her again and again, ignorantly and irreparably, with increasing violence. And even though she was patient and benevolent, like a mother with her recalcitrant child, she was now taking revenge for his folly and cruelty.
Highly recommended.
This dystopian saga recounting the struggle of Kazakh fisherman-turned-mullah Nasyr and his son Kakharman to persuade Soviet bureaucrats to reverse ill-conceived irrigation schemes that were destroying the Aral Sea is not an easy or enjoyable read, but it is a timely and important read. Lest it be mistaken for merely an anti-Soviet screed, periodic news briefs list offenses against the environment in the form of nuclear tests, deforestation, acid rain, chemical leaks, and oil spills around the globe. Seisenbayev is not above hitting the reader on the head with his message, but I found it integral to the narrative and not off-putting. The novel is also rich in Kazakh history and culture, with extensive helpful footnotes.
What a fool was Man who descended from Adam and Eve! How foolish and arrogant. Long ago, he stopped respecting Nature as a mother and began to force her to his will, attacking her again and again, ignorantly and irreparably, with increasing violence. And even though she was patient and benevolent, like a mother with her recalcitrant child, she was now taking revenge for his folly and cruelty.
Highly recommended.
September 28, 2019
4 Stars
*A elaborate and winding tale of devastation and survival*
ARC provided by AmazonCrossing via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Whenever I come close to thinking I’m an informed person, I come across something that reminds me I’m not. In this case, it was the situation Aral Sea. Although The Dead Wander in the Desert is a fictional story, it illuminates a true plight ignored by much of the world. It’s a real-life tragedy created by mankind.
This story was originally published in 1986 in Russian by Rollan Seisenbayev (who according to the publisher; I couldn’t find much information to verify) is “Kazakhstan’s most celebrated and honored author.” Now this story has finally been translated into English. I am always on the lookout for new authors, and I love reading stories from other countries. Let’s be honest; the publishing industry is too focused on the U.S. and U.K.. So I was excited when I stumbled across The Dead Wander in the Desert.
Admittedly, this is not a mainstream book. The writing is influenced by traditional Kazakh oral storytelling. While beautifully written, this book is not straightforward or fast-paced. There are multiple points of view, flashbacks, and points where the narrative seems to meander away from the central story. Some words are translated or defined but others are not, so that may intimidate some readers. I’ll include a content warning for Colonialism, oppression, misogyny, and animal sacrifice.
The story is beautiful though. It explores the human condition and the environmental impact made by humans. It raises important questions. While not a light or easy read, The Dead Wander in the Desert is a compelling tale.
RATING FACTORS:
Ease of Reading: 2 Stars
Writing Style: 3 Stars
Characters and Character Development: 4 Stars
Plot Structure and Development: 4 Stars
Level of Captivation: 4 Stars
Originality: 4 Stars
*A elaborate and winding tale of devastation and survival*
ARC provided by AmazonCrossing via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
Whenever I come close to thinking I’m an informed person, I come across something that reminds me I’m not. In this case, it was the situation Aral Sea. Although The Dead Wander in the Desert is a fictional story, it illuminates a true plight ignored by much of the world. It’s a real-life tragedy created by mankind.
This story was originally published in 1986 in Russian by Rollan Seisenbayev (who according to the publisher; I couldn’t find much information to verify) is “Kazakhstan’s most celebrated and honored author.” Now this story has finally been translated into English. I am always on the lookout for new authors, and I love reading stories from other countries. Let’s be honest; the publishing industry is too focused on the U.S. and U.K.. So I was excited when I stumbled across The Dead Wander in the Desert.
Admittedly, this is not a mainstream book. The writing is influenced by traditional Kazakh oral storytelling. While beautifully written, this book is not straightforward or fast-paced. There are multiple points of view, flashbacks, and points where the narrative seems to meander away from the central story. Some words are translated or defined but others are not, so that may intimidate some readers. I’ll include a content warning for Colonialism, oppression, misogyny, and animal sacrifice.
The story is beautiful though. It explores the human condition and the environmental impact made by humans. It raises important questions. While not a light or easy read, The Dead Wander in the Desert is a compelling tale.
RATING FACTORS:
Ease of Reading: 2 Stars
Writing Style: 3 Stars
Characters and Character Development: 4 Stars
Plot Structure and Development: 4 Stars
Level of Captivation: 4 Stars
Originality: 4 Stars
November 4, 2019
A rare glimpse into Kazakhstan, its culture - steeped in storytelling and magical realism, and the shrinking and drying up of the Aral Sea as a result of the Soviet Union diverting the rivers that flowed into it. The Aral Sea was once the fourth largest lake in the world. Sweeping in scope, the storyline starts off with Nasyr, a fisherman and his wife Korlan, and their son Kakharman. Father and son are determined to battle political, social, and environmental issues to save their beloved waters. Set during the Soviet Union days, the story is meandering, going back and forth in time, filled with innumerable characters, stories and sub-stories, some “real,” others steeped in fables or magical realism, and countless travels across villages and cities. The result - a bit of a dizzy reading experience that meandered making concentration key to keeping track of all the threads. It’s worth the read if one can do that and stick with it. There are few books such as this one. It’s definitely a window into Kazakhstan and a part of the world I haven’t read much about and it’s great that the book was translated and shared globally. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.
September 15, 2025
4.5 stars. This is a hugely interesting but disturbing read. It focuses on a family in a small settlement on the Aral Sea and charts its degradation and destruction almost alongside that of the USSR - with the book finishing in 1989 as the East European communist bloc is disappearing and protests against the Soviet regime are starting to proliferate internally as well.
Apparently it is written in a more traditional Kazakh form and although the bulk of the story is linear there are multiple diversions and unexplained switches in timelines, perspective etc. which could be confusing. For me though they didn’t really impact on the overall flow of the narrative as long as you didn’t attempt to understand how everything is related to the core characters and accepted that sometimes you were learning something as a prompt to Kazakh history or culture rather than something that impacts directly on the storyline. The author also uses extracts from Kazakh folklore and Islamic thought, scientific analyses as well as headlines from contemporaneous newspaper cuttings so that it all eventually builds to feel like an epic depicting Kazakhstan’s recent history.
For much of the book it reads like a quiet meandering look at a dying way of rural life (granted with some flashbacks to more eventful periods) but it takes a completely unexpected turn in the last hundred pages or so in a way that really took my breath away. It’s a book that takes some patience and lots of thought but if you can persevere it really delivers and I was surprised by how emotionally invested I was by the end.
Apparently it is written in a more traditional Kazakh form and although the bulk of the story is linear there are multiple diversions and unexplained switches in timelines, perspective etc. which could be confusing. For me though they didn’t really impact on the overall flow of the narrative as long as you didn’t attempt to understand how everything is related to the core characters and accepted that sometimes you were learning something as a prompt to Kazakh history or culture rather than something that impacts directly on the storyline. The author also uses extracts from Kazakh folklore and Islamic thought, scientific analyses as well as headlines from contemporaneous newspaper cuttings so that it all eventually builds to feel like an epic depicting Kazakhstan’s recent history.
For much of the book it reads like a quiet meandering look at a dying way of rural life (granted with some flashbacks to more eventful periods) but it takes a completely unexpected turn in the last hundred pages or so in a way that really took my breath away. It’s a book that takes some patience and lots of thought but if you can persevere it really delivers and I was surprised by how emotionally invested I was by the end.
October 10, 2020
Like Peering Through A Telescope at a Far Away World
The Dead Wander in the Desert is a melancholy and at times brutally graphic tale of life around the Aral Sea. It looks frankly at a real-life modern day problem, that of the shrinking of the biggest sea in that region of the world. It does so with a bit of pessimism and cynicism, and for that reason I didn't enjoy myself very much while reading this. I prefer books with a more positive and constructive world view. I like to believe that there is something we can do to change a bad situation. I expect a book to show me not only a problem, but what the solution might look like.
Possibly I would have enjoyed a non-fiction work more, one that would have given me facts and the work that is currently underway to make a better world for the people of the region. Instead it seemed a bit dystopian in focus. I almost wanted to group it in the category for Dystopian literature. It has that end of the world ring to everything that happens in its pages. In addition, some gruesome events are never explained. It is just a 'see bad things happen and ride off on your horse' series of events.
Probably because of the fact that the world there is so different from my own, I had a difficult time following the time frame, and was unsure of the sequence of events a few times. This was when the author jumped backward in time without warning. That said, I had no problem relating to the things that happened. And, I found myself several times lost in thought, just trying to put myself in the character's shoes and wonder what it would be like to have to make his or her decisions as they did. It really was like looking at a faraway world. But, it does fill a niche for hard to obtain books written about that region of the world in English.
I read this for my stop in Kazakhstan on my Journey Around the World in 2019-2020. I am looking forward to my next stop in China, where I will not face such culture shock, I am sure, since I have read and seen much from China.
The Dead Wander in the Desert is a melancholy and at times brutally graphic tale of life around the Aral Sea. It looks frankly at a real-life modern day problem, that of the shrinking of the biggest sea in that region of the world. It does so with a bit of pessimism and cynicism, and for that reason I didn't enjoy myself very much while reading this. I prefer books with a more positive and constructive world view. I like to believe that there is something we can do to change a bad situation. I expect a book to show me not only a problem, but what the solution might look like.
Possibly I would have enjoyed a non-fiction work more, one that would have given me facts and the work that is currently underway to make a better world for the people of the region. Instead it seemed a bit dystopian in focus. I almost wanted to group it in the category for Dystopian literature. It has that end of the world ring to everything that happens in its pages. In addition, some gruesome events are never explained. It is just a 'see bad things happen and ride off on your horse' series of events.
Probably because of the fact that the world there is so different from my own, I had a difficult time following the time frame, and was unsure of the sequence of events a few times. This was when the author jumped backward in time without warning. That said, I had no problem relating to the things that happened. And, I found myself several times lost in thought, just trying to put myself in the character's shoes and wonder what it would be like to have to make his or her decisions as they did. It really was like looking at a faraway world. But, it does fill a niche for hard to obtain books written about that region of the world in English.
I read this for my stop in Kazakhstan on my Journey Around the World in 2019-2020. I am looking forward to my next stop in China, where I will not face such culture shock, I am sure, since I have read and seen much from China.
September 12, 2019
In "The Dead Wander in the Desert," we see the final, painful days of the Soviet Union, juxtaposed with the final, painful days of the Aral Sea, as a once-bountiful land dries up and turns to a poisonous, salt-filled desert. The characters in the book fight to preserve the sea, but in vain: the central planners in Alma Ata (present-day Almaty) and Moscow refuse to undam the rivers running into it, dooming it and all who live in or by it to destruction.
The desiccation of the Aral Sea has been named one of the greatest natural disasters of the 20th century. In the past decade the water levels in one of its few remaining pools have been raised, but it is still far from revived. At the same time, it has received much less attention than more spectacular disasters than Chernobyl. In part that's probably because it happened out in Central Asia and primarily affected Central Asians, not Europeans. And in part that's because it's much less exciting than something like a nuclear meltdown. The destruction of the Aral Sea was the predictable result of specific policies, and took place over decades. There was no giant explosion, just a day-by-day incremental worsening of the problem, until one day the land was no longer habitable. Sound familiar?
"The Dead Wander in the Desert" is worth reading for its subject matter alone: it's both a memorial to a terrible disaster, and a clear warning bell of the danger of other disasters that are bearing down on the entire planet. It has a clear and unambiguous environmental message that some readers might find overbearing from an artistic point of view, but can't help but get its (extremely urgent) point across.
It's also worth reading as a window into a culture that most Western readers are likely to know little or nothing about. As well as an elegiac celebration of the Aral Sea in its final days, it's also a celebration of Kazakh culture. Western readers of the English-language translation are likely to find the culture simultaneously fascinating and off-putting: the book extolls both the close-knit Kazakh community around the sea and its close relationship with the land, and less attractive features of it such as animal sacrifice and the subjugation of women. As with other (post)-Soviet cultures, from a Western perspective there are no unmitigated good guys here. The Kazakhs were genuinely exploited and oppressed, and their culture almost destroyed along with their natural environment, by the Soviet regime. Some parts of the culture the book's characters are trying so hard to preserve probably do need to be tossed out into the dustbin of history. "The Dead Wander in the Desert" does not provide any answers to this thorny dilemma, but it would serve as an excellent jumping-off point for discussion in a class on environmental or post-colonial fiction.
Structurally and stylistically, the book is interesting but challenging. It follows along the events of perestroika more or less chronologically, but with multiple points of view and frequent flashbacks and digressions. This helps give it its epic breadth, depth, and feel, but requires attention from the reader to follow. It also has a tinge of magic realism mixed in with its purely realist accounting of perestroika and the world events surrounding it. It's not something to pick up as a piece of light, escapist reading. As with the subject matter, though, it would work beautifully as an assigned reading for a college-level class or book club that tackles serious topics and "big" novels.
The translation is well done, and the numerous end notes explaining cultural and historical events, as well as the Kazakh and Russian words that are left untranslated, will be very helpful for readers unfamiliar with perestroika, the USSR, or Kazakh culture.
"The Dead Wander in the Desert" is not an easy read, but it *is* a "big" novel in the Russian/Soviet tradition. Recommended for serious readers of literature in translation, especially Russian/Soviet/post-Soviet literature, and for readers of environmental and colonial/post-colonial fiction.
My thanks to NetGalley and Amazon Crossing for providing a review copy of this book. All opinions are my own.
The desiccation of the Aral Sea has been named one of the greatest natural disasters of the 20th century. In the past decade the water levels in one of its few remaining pools have been raised, but it is still far from revived. At the same time, it has received much less attention than more spectacular disasters than Chernobyl. In part that's probably because it happened out in Central Asia and primarily affected Central Asians, not Europeans. And in part that's because it's much less exciting than something like a nuclear meltdown. The destruction of the Aral Sea was the predictable result of specific policies, and took place over decades. There was no giant explosion, just a day-by-day incremental worsening of the problem, until one day the land was no longer habitable. Sound familiar?
"The Dead Wander in the Desert" is worth reading for its subject matter alone: it's both a memorial to a terrible disaster, and a clear warning bell of the danger of other disasters that are bearing down on the entire planet. It has a clear and unambiguous environmental message that some readers might find overbearing from an artistic point of view, but can't help but get its (extremely urgent) point across.
It's also worth reading as a window into a culture that most Western readers are likely to know little or nothing about. As well as an elegiac celebration of the Aral Sea in its final days, it's also a celebration of Kazakh culture. Western readers of the English-language translation are likely to find the culture simultaneously fascinating and off-putting: the book extolls both the close-knit Kazakh community around the sea and its close relationship with the land, and less attractive features of it such as animal sacrifice and the subjugation of women. As with other (post)-Soviet cultures, from a Western perspective there are no unmitigated good guys here. The Kazakhs were genuinely exploited and oppressed, and their culture almost destroyed along with their natural environment, by the Soviet regime. Some parts of the culture the book's characters are trying so hard to preserve probably do need to be tossed out into the dustbin of history. "The Dead Wander in the Desert" does not provide any answers to this thorny dilemma, but it would serve as an excellent jumping-off point for discussion in a class on environmental or post-colonial fiction.
Structurally and stylistically, the book is interesting but challenging. It follows along the events of perestroika more or less chronologically, but with multiple points of view and frequent flashbacks and digressions. This helps give it its epic breadth, depth, and feel, but requires attention from the reader to follow. It also has a tinge of magic realism mixed in with its purely realist accounting of perestroika and the world events surrounding it. It's not something to pick up as a piece of light, escapist reading. As with the subject matter, though, it would work beautifully as an assigned reading for a college-level class or book club that tackles serious topics and "big" novels.
The translation is well done, and the numerous end notes explaining cultural and historical events, as well as the Kazakh and Russian words that are left untranslated, will be very helpful for readers unfamiliar with perestroika, the USSR, or Kazakh culture.
"The Dead Wander in the Desert" is not an easy read, but it *is* a "big" novel in the Russian/Soviet tradition. Recommended for serious readers of literature in translation, especially Russian/Soviet/post-Soviet literature, and for readers of environmental and colonial/post-colonial fiction.
My thanks to NetGalley and Amazon Crossing for providing a review copy of this book. All opinions are my own.
October 5, 2019
The Dead Wander in the Desert, Rollan Seisenbayev (John Farndon and Olga Nakston)
You can listen to my interview with the translator here: https://www.hourofhistory.com/the-dea...
When I first heard about the Seisenbayev’s novel appearing in English I was captivated by the cover art. I imagine most people my age have seen a similar photograph of a boat in the waterless desert that was once the Aral Sea. I have had guests on the Hour of History Podcast talk about other natural disasters such as the disappearance of the Louisiana coastline and the nuclear fallout of the Chernobyl disaster, but never on the Aral Sea.
Reading literature in translation can be hit or miss, which is why I was intrigued by the collaborative approach employed by Farndon and Nakston. Farndon tells the story of Seisenbayev’s shaman telling him to find Farndon for this particular translation in my podcast. I think it ended up as a huge success.
This book is one you must spend time with. It is not something to be quickly raided, but rather carefully read - a great autumn read. It has poetry, long dialogues, and diversions through the vast plain that we now call Kazahkstan - a refreshing introduction to a fascinating country people don’t know a whole lot about.
As it continued, I felt like I was sitting and listening intently to Seisenbayev tell tales of Kazakhstan long into the night. The story challenges us with political, environmental, and religious questions such as this: “If the officials of Kazakhstan and the rest of Central Asia had sat at the same table and debated intelligently, they could’ve come to a decision and saved the sea. But now what? Each republic uses the wealth of the earth as if it’s their own property. We are not thinking about our children, not thinking about tomorrow. Everything is today, everything is now, now, now… and as many gold medals for your chest as possible!” Such passages resonate far beyond Kazakhstan.
All in all, it is a compelling book that can be taken as an entertaining novel, an introduction to central Asia, an exploration of Kazakhstan, or a unique look at central Asian Islam. It is poetry, politics, and the environment and much more which results in a really pleasant experience for the reader.
Thanks to Amazon Crossing for providing a review copy of this book. All opinions are my own.
You can listen to my interview with the translator here: https://www.hourofhistory.com/the-dea...
When I first heard about the Seisenbayev’s novel appearing in English I was captivated by the cover art. I imagine most people my age have seen a similar photograph of a boat in the waterless desert that was once the Aral Sea. I have had guests on the Hour of History Podcast talk about other natural disasters such as the disappearance of the Louisiana coastline and the nuclear fallout of the Chernobyl disaster, but never on the Aral Sea.
Reading literature in translation can be hit or miss, which is why I was intrigued by the collaborative approach employed by Farndon and Nakston. Farndon tells the story of Seisenbayev’s shaman telling him to find Farndon for this particular translation in my podcast. I think it ended up as a huge success.
This book is one you must spend time with. It is not something to be quickly raided, but rather carefully read - a great autumn read. It has poetry, long dialogues, and diversions through the vast plain that we now call Kazahkstan - a refreshing introduction to a fascinating country people don’t know a whole lot about.
As it continued, I felt like I was sitting and listening intently to Seisenbayev tell tales of Kazakhstan long into the night. The story challenges us with political, environmental, and religious questions such as this: “If the officials of Kazakhstan and the rest of Central Asia had sat at the same table and debated intelligently, they could’ve come to a decision and saved the sea. But now what? Each republic uses the wealth of the earth as if it’s their own property. We are not thinking about our children, not thinking about tomorrow. Everything is today, everything is now, now, now… and as many gold medals for your chest as possible!” Such passages resonate far beyond Kazakhstan.
All in all, it is a compelling book that can be taken as an entertaining novel, an introduction to central Asia, an exploration of Kazakhstan, or a unique look at central Asian Islam. It is poetry, politics, and the environment and much more which results in a really pleasant experience for the reader.
Thanks to Amazon Crossing for providing a review copy of this book. All opinions are my own.
December 27, 2022
"We thought that we’d live well after the war. We built big factories and spared no effort to do it. But there’s a new war now, an invisible one. It’s impossible to tell who is attacking us. The government? God? Man himself? Show man mercy. Let him live as a man. Don’t you think he deserves it? Isn’t it enough to shoot at him, freeze him in the camps, lead him by his nose to the birth of communism, only to exterminate him as if he’s the most disgusting beast!"
February 19, 2023
Read Around the World: Kazakhstan
**A NOTE**
Two things; I would HIGHLY suggest that you make a list of characters at the beginning of the book, as they come up. It will help in the overall reading of this, and 2. listen to the very good narration as it will save you trying to figure out how to pronounce ALL those Kazakh and Russian names. Trust me with this one. ;-)
**A NOTE**
Two things; I would HIGHLY suggest that you make a list of characters at the beginning of the book, as they come up. It will help in the overall reading of this, and 2. listen to the very good narration as it will save you trying to figure out how to pronounce ALL those Kazakh and Russian names. Trust me with this one. ;-)
June 12, 2020
Obviously I picked this book up because I thought I might like it, but I've been completely blown away by how much I liked it. Rarely has a slow and meandering book like this been such a page-turner for me (indeed, perhaps this is the first time it's ever happened). Even though the story is full of sorrow and hopelessness, I found it addictive and enlightening about a country I knew little about, Kazakhstan.
In the main, this is a story about the man-made ecological disaster that is the disappearance of the Aral Sea. The Soviets decided to divert the grand rivers that fed this vast salt-water lake into irrigation canals, to water rice and cotton crops. The shoreline receded, exposing tons of intensely salty sand that blew away in the fierce winds, ruining the farmland that was barely viable in the first place. It would be bad enough if that were the only environmental disaster facing the region, but it's not: the salty sand is also full of highly toxic waste dumped into those rivers over decades when they still flowed; the nuclear weapon test facility in the east of Kazakhstan has left much of the land saturated with nuclear pollution, causing sky-high rates of birth defects, infant mortality and cancers; and the pesticides and fertilisers smothered over the cotton crops to make them grow at all leech their own toxicity into the environment. This book reads like an account of the apocalypse: the ocean's fish dying, the people all living with varying degrees of poison in their system, domesticated animals going wild and running off with feral packs, vicious sandstorms battering the fools still living around the sea…
The ongoing theme of this book is "man" thinking he knows better than nature, and as such destroying everything. The book does have religious overtones to it, with one of the main characters, Nasyr, being a mullah who prays continually to God to save Sinemorye, and wondering in despair whether it is God who has forsaken humanity, or humanity who has forsaken God. But you don't need to be religious to appreciate this book (I certainly am not); if you respect nature, and shudder in horror at how governments and corporations around the world wreak immense environmental destruction that would take nature thousands of years to recover from even if the damage wasn't being continually compounded on, this book will make an impact on you regardless.
The other running theme that I found interesting was the criticism of the Soviet authorities. Nasyr's son, Kakharman, begins the book as a low-ranking bureaucrat whose overriding goal is to convince the head honchos in Moscow to stop destroying the Aral Sea. There are other characters, too, like the scientist Slavikov and his son Igor, who share this goal. But the party apparatus is so stuffed full of careerists that would rather destroy entire ecosystems than admit to any mistakes, that this effort is basically futile. The book also talks about, or at least mentions, many of the horrific things that happened under Stalin's rule, like the Holodomor (where millions died in a man-made famine) and the Great Purge (where a similarly huge number were executed or sent to gulags, and since the authorities considered "criminality" to be hereditary, even children were mistreated in orphanages as "enemies of the state"). There are a number of flashbacks into the lives of minor characters to explore their lives during these times, and these passages are raw and moving. Despite a single brief section where America is described as like so amazing, they would never harm the environment! (bahaha, yeah ok) the criticism largely does not come from a place of, "and this is why the FREE MARKET and American imperialism are so great!" like Western criticisms of the USSR mostly do – instead it is with sympathy for the ordinary person, and especially the colonised person, as Kazakhs were by Russians. It's a very well-written book.
There are some reasons why you may not enjoy this book – it is quite long and mostly humourless, and it's not exactly a book where the animals are having a good time (although, as someone who hates animal cruelty and suffering in books, I wasn't "triggered" by this one – there's no real cruelty, although Kazakh society is definitely not vegetarian, and it's all of nature suffering here, not only the animals). The Kindle version seems bugged, and thinks the entire last 25% of the book is page 483, so be prepared for a book with a real length of ~600 pages or so. But man, what an entrancing 600 pages.
In the main, this is a story about the man-made ecological disaster that is the disappearance of the Aral Sea. The Soviets decided to divert the grand rivers that fed this vast salt-water lake into irrigation canals, to water rice and cotton crops. The shoreline receded, exposing tons of intensely salty sand that blew away in the fierce winds, ruining the farmland that was barely viable in the first place. It would be bad enough if that were the only environmental disaster facing the region, but it's not: the salty sand is also full of highly toxic waste dumped into those rivers over decades when they still flowed; the nuclear weapon test facility in the east of Kazakhstan has left much of the land saturated with nuclear pollution, causing sky-high rates of birth defects, infant mortality and cancers; and the pesticides and fertilisers smothered over the cotton crops to make them grow at all leech their own toxicity into the environment. This book reads like an account of the apocalypse: the ocean's fish dying, the people all living with varying degrees of poison in their system, domesticated animals going wild and running off with feral packs, vicious sandstorms battering the fools still living around the sea…
The ongoing theme of this book is "man" thinking he knows better than nature, and as such destroying everything. The book does have religious overtones to it, with one of the main characters, Nasyr, being a mullah who prays continually to God to save Sinemorye, and wondering in despair whether it is God who has forsaken humanity, or humanity who has forsaken God. But you don't need to be religious to appreciate this book (I certainly am not); if you respect nature, and shudder in horror at how governments and corporations around the world wreak immense environmental destruction that would take nature thousands of years to recover from even if the damage wasn't being continually compounded on, this book will make an impact on you regardless.
The other running theme that I found interesting was the criticism of the Soviet authorities. Nasyr's son, Kakharman, begins the book as a low-ranking bureaucrat whose overriding goal is to convince the head honchos in Moscow to stop destroying the Aral Sea. There are other characters, too, like the scientist Slavikov and his son Igor, who share this goal. But the party apparatus is so stuffed full of careerists that would rather destroy entire ecosystems than admit to any mistakes, that this effort is basically futile. The book also talks about, or at least mentions, many of the horrific things that happened under Stalin's rule, like the Holodomor (where millions died in a man-made famine) and the Great Purge (where a similarly huge number were executed or sent to gulags, and since the authorities considered "criminality" to be hereditary, even children were mistreated in orphanages as "enemies of the state"). There are a number of flashbacks into the lives of minor characters to explore their lives during these times, and these passages are raw and moving. Despite a single brief section where America is described as like so amazing, they would never harm the environment! (bahaha, yeah ok) the criticism largely does not come from a place of, "and this is why the FREE MARKET and American imperialism are so great!" like Western criticisms of the USSR mostly do – instead it is with sympathy for the ordinary person, and especially the colonised person, as Kazakhs were by Russians. It's a very well-written book.
There are some reasons why you may not enjoy this book – it is quite long and mostly humourless, and it's not exactly a book where the animals are having a good time (although, as someone who hates animal cruelty and suffering in books, I wasn't "triggered" by this one – there's no real cruelty, although Kazakh society is definitely not vegetarian, and it's all of nature suffering here, not only the animals). The Kindle version seems bugged, and thinks the entire last 25% of the book is page 483, so be prepared for a book with a real length of ~600 pages or so. But man, what an entrancing 600 pages.
February 17, 2020
The Dead Wander in the Desert is a story, flocked in magical realism, that confronts the horrific impact of the rapid draining of the Aral Sea in the later years of the Soviet Union. Focusing specifically on ethnic Kazakhs situated in the region and the resulting degradation of their millennia-long ties to the Sea as they are forced into environmental exile, Seisenbayev paints a warning of the dangers of the relentless pursuit of "progress and development", all too often enacted at the naive (or educated) expense of environmental and humanitarian concerns. Here, as well, is an elusive codification of the depths of Kazakh culture, which, contrary to what popular narratives about Russification in the Soviet Union would have many believe, is depicted as threatened but unshakable.
I have noted among other reviews, scholarly and otherwise, a reflexive tendency to compare this book with Russian works. While it feels apt to draw certain thematic parallels of resistance and determinism with Tolstoy's War and Peace (and perhaps most notably, the later Hadji Murad), and (notwithstanding Fyodor Kryukov) Sholokov's odes to the Don Cossacks, I personally judge this to be a somewhat problematic identification with the Soviet (and specifically, Russian) imperialist center, which, while not completely untrue of the text's political leanings, is a complete mischaracterization of the cultural foundations of the narrative, laid out by the invocation of its title.
"The Dead Wander in the Desert" calls directly to the fore the nomadic origins of the Kazakh people - an ethnonym derived from the Old Turkic word for "those who wander" during the pre-Islamic period. The resilience of the name, and the cultural history behind it, is significant to Seisenbayev's narrative. Steeped in direct and ghost references to thousands of years of Kazakh literary traditions, The Dead Wander in the Desert is a mournful and self-assured love letter to the Turkic, Scytho-Iranian and Persian, and Muslim Arab cohesion that informed Kazakh orientation as an autonomous and independent Soviet republic, and later, as an independent nation state. It is not, after all, the Russian noun "stan", but the Persian suffix "-stân" that was adopted by the new republic, invoking the vastness and fluidity of "the land of wanderers" rather than the stationary permanence (and, it must be said, militancy) implied by the Russian nominal cognate, which certainly aligns with Seisenbayev's assertion here (in the 1980s) of Kazakh resistance as grounded in nonviolence (an inheritance from both Zoroastrianism and Islam).
No, I would argue instead that, while Seisenbayev certainly owes some creedance to his Russian forebears, the tradition he is working with is quite distinct from the nature of Tolstoy and Sholokov, both as Russian/Soviet, and secularizing touchstones. Far more does The Dead Wander in the Desert feel reminiscent of Simin Daneshvar's Savushun of nearby (and not infrequently-mentioned) Iran, which preceded Seisenbayev's text by about 20 years, and addresses the British occupation of Iran during the Second World War.
Both texts are heavily informed by the spiritual and religious heritage of the people they are illuminating, with Seisenbayev's Aral Kazakhs holding fast to their unique branch of Islam and Muslim and Zoroastrian mysticism, while Daneshvar showcases the Zoroastrian Persians of Shiraz. Filled as well with inheritances of myth and verse from pre-Islamic Central Asia, both also play quite consciously on the same tale of the honourable exile, Siyâvash, who English readers will have crossed most accessibly in Ferdowsi's Shahnameh. In the case of Daneshvar, the tragic hero lends his name to the story itself, and his deeds and co-conspirators find their homes in the characters and events Daneshvar relates in a more contemporary context.
Seisenbayev's use is more broadly implicit, painting the Kazakhs as a whole in the image of Siyâvash. The hero's legacy flits about the edges of their narrative, occasionally invading it whole scale as characters find themselves reenacting scenes of his legend in their own harried lives. In no case is this tragic martyrdom more evident than in the Kazakhs themselves, and their land - the people now are dead, and their oasis now the desert of which the title forebodes. It bears note however, that the martyrdom of the Kazakhs is not solely in resonance with the pre-Islamic context of Siyâvash - the theme is contiguous with the Shi'a and (to a lesser extent) Sunni traditions of Greater Iran as well, most notably during Ashura commemorations and pilgrimages in honour of Imam Husayn, but also in the more recent framings of the deaths of Ayatollah Khomeini and General Qasem Soleimani.
Ultimately, what Seisenbayev produces with The Dead Wander in the Desert is a gorgeous, if harrowing, convalescence of Kazakh culture and history, even as, at the time of writing, and in the book itself, those traditions and the landscape to which they are so intimately tied were collapsing before his very eyes.
Before concluding, however, it seems incumbent to acknowledge that there will be many reading this first-ever English translation who will feel obliged to use this as further evidence of Russian tyranny and the devastation of the Soviet project. To do so would do a disservice to the intent of this work, which is perhaps all too timely as Australia burns... There is no collection of nations more wary of the devastating costs of naive and uncritical pursuits of industrialism, infrastructure development, and nuclear proliferation than those that formerly populated the Soviet Union. But while Seisenbayev (representing the interests an ecosystem destroyed by the compounding effects of Soviet-era irrigation projects, accidents of biochemical warfare tests, and nuclear weapons development) is well-placed to make such a critique, he is not writing with the intent of attacking a particular political movement or country. On the contrary, the aim is instead an all-encompassing laying of blame at the feet of the collective, powerful and powerless alike, to protect the world and those who live upon it.
That he quite deliberately couches this in the tenants of faith and spirituality are also significant for "Western" readers. All too often do we associate climate activism in North America and Europe with secular leftism because of the ways religious conservatism has merged with right wing political movements along social lines, despite this not at all reflecting the perspective of our Indigenous peoples, on whom we too often place the burden of proof for climate change, regardless of our political affiliations. But in the Soviet context, this secularizing nexus did not actually make the government more likely to invest in climate science - indeed, had the government been more attuned to the spiritual connection of the Kazakhs to their land, one has to wonder if conscious empathy in the moment wouldn't have been so great a stretch.
So no, do not use this book as leverage in the burgeoning Cold War against Russia and the KGB agents we are fond of "uncovering" behind every rock. Use it instead to reflect on the moment we find ourselves in now, and the tragedy of the fact that 30 years on from this incredible book's Russian-language publication, Soviet hellscapes don't feel all that Soviet anymore.
I have noted among other reviews, scholarly and otherwise, a reflexive tendency to compare this book with Russian works. While it feels apt to draw certain thematic parallels of resistance and determinism with Tolstoy's War and Peace (and perhaps most notably, the later Hadji Murad), and (notwithstanding Fyodor Kryukov) Sholokov's odes to the Don Cossacks, I personally judge this to be a somewhat problematic identification with the Soviet (and specifically, Russian) imperialist center, which, while not completely untrue of the text's political leanings, is a complete mischaracterization of the cultural foundations of the narrative, laid out by the invocation of its title.
"The Dead Wander in the Desert" calls directly to the fore the nomadic origins of the Kazakh people - an ethnonym derived from the Old Turkic word for "those who wander" during the pre-Islamic period. The resilience of the name, and the cultural history behind it, is significant to Seisenbayev's narrative. Steeped in direct and ghost references to thousands of years of Kazakh literary traditions, The Dead Wander in the Desert is a mournful and self-assured love letter to the Turkic, Scytho-Iranian and Persian, and Muslim Arab cohesion that informed Kazakh orientation as an autonomous and independent Soviet republic, and later, as an independent nation state. It is not, after all, the Russian noun "stan", but the Persian suffix "-stân" that was adopted by the new republic, invoking the vastness and fluidity of "the land of wanderers" rather than the stationary permanence (and, it must be said, militancy) implied by the Russian nominal cognate, which certainly aligns with Seisenbayev's assertion here (in the 1980s) of Kazakh resistance as grounded in nonviolence (an inheritance from both Zoroastrianism and Islam).
No, I would argue instead that, while Seisenbayev certainly owes some creedance to his Russian forebears, the tradition he is working with is quite distinct from the nature of Tolstoy and Sholokov, both as Russian/Soviet, and secularizing touchstones. Far more does The Dead Wander in the Desert feel reminiscent of Simin Daneshvar's Savushun of nearby (and not infrequently-mentioned) Iran, which preceded Seisenbayev's text by about 20 years, and addresses the British occupation of Iran during the Second World War.
Both texts are heavily informed by the spiritual and religious heritage of the people they are illuminating, with Seisenbayev's Aral Kazakhs holding fast to their unique branch of Islam and Muslim and Zoroastrian mysticism, while Daneshvar showcases the Zoroastrian Persians of Shiraz. Filled as well with inheritances of myth and verse from pre-Islamic Central Asia, both also play quite consciously on the same tale of the honourable exile, Siyâvash, who English readers will have crossed most accessibly in Ferdowsi's Shahnameh. In the case of Daneshvar, the tragic hero lends his name to the story itself, and his deeds and co-conspirators find their homes in the characters and events Daneshvar relates in a more contemporary context.
Seisenbayev's use is more broadly implicit, painting the Kazakhs as a whole in the image of Siyâvash. The hero's legacy flits about the edges of their narrative, occasionally invading it whole scale as characters find themselves reenacting scenes of his legend in their own harried lives. In no case is this tragic martyrdom more evident than in the Kazakhs themselves, and their land - the people now are dead, and their oasis now the desert of which the title forebodes. It bears note however, that the martyrdom of the Kazakhs is not solely in resonance with the pre-Islamic context of Siyâvash - the theme is contiguous with the Shi'a and (to a lesser extent) Sunni traditions of Greater Iran as well, most notably during Ashura commemorations and pilgrimages in honour of Imam Husayn, but also in the more recent framings of the deaths of Ayatollah Khomeini and General Qasem Soleimani.
Ultimately, what Seisenbayev produces with The Dead Wander in the Desert is a gorgeous, if harrowing, convalescence of Kazakh culture and history, even as, at the time of writing, and in the book itself, those traditions and the landscape to which they are so intimately tied were collapsing before his very eyes.
Before concluding, however, it seems incumbent to acknowledge that there will be many reading this first-ever English translation who will feel obliged to use this as further evidence of Russian tyranny and the devastation of the Soviet project. To do so would do a disservice to the intent of this work, which is perhaps all too timely as Australia burns... There is no collection of nations more wary of the devastating costs of naive and uncritical pursuits of industrialism, infrastructure development, and nuclear proliferation than those that formerly populated the Soviet Union. But while Seisenbayev (representing the interests an ecosystem destroyed by the compounding effects of Soviet-era irrigation projects, accidents of biochemical warfare tests, and nuclear weapons development) is well-placed to make such a critique, he is not writing with the intent of attacking a particular political movement or country. On the contrary, the aim is instead an all-encompassing laying of blame at the feet of the collective, powerful and powerless alike, to protect the world and those who live upon it.
That he quite deliberately couches this in the tenants of faith and spirituality are also significant for "Western" readers. All too often do we associate climate activism in North America and Europe with secular leftism because of the ways religious conservatism has merged with right wing political movements along social lines, despite this not at all reflecting the perspective of our Indigenous peoples, on whom we too often place the burden of proof for climate change, regardless of our political affiliations. But in the Soviet context, this secularizing nexus did not actually make the government more likely to invest in climate science - indeed, had the government been more attuned to the spiritual connection of the Kazakhs to their land, one has to wonder if conscious empathy in the moment wouldn't have been so great a stretch.
So no, do not use this book as leverage in the burgeoning Cold War against Russia and the KGB agents we are fond of "uncovering" behind every rock. Use it instead to reflect on the moment we find ourselves in now, and the tragedy of the fact that 30 years on from this incredible book's Russian-language publication, Soviet hellscapes don't feel all that Soviet anymore.
April 8, 2025
#readtheworld Kazakhstan
An incredibly beautiful and heartbreaking story of Kazakhstan under soviet rule and the devastating ecological disaster of the death of the Aral Sea. Though I was initially intimidated by the length of the novel and its slow pace, I became immersed in the rich Kazakh history and culture interwoven through the pages. I found myself craving more information on the historical foundations of the story, looking up countless articles on Kazakstan and the Aral sea between readings.
The vast cast of characters required some side notes for clarification and understanding, but I became entirely invested in the main characters and their plights to save their aul, their country, and themselves.
The inclusion of historical poetry and folk songs provides a richness to the text, highlighting Kazakhstan's oral storytelling tradition. There are also hints of magical realism, which only increased to my love for this novel.
An incredibly beautiful and heartbreaking story of Kazakhstan under soviet rule and the devastating ecological disaster of the death of the Aral Sea. Though I was initially intimidated by the length of the novel and its slow pace, I became immersed in the rich Kazakh history and culture interwoven through the pages. I found myself craving more information on the historical foundations of the story, looking up countless articles on Kazakstan and the Aral sea between readings.
The vast cast of characters required some side notes for clarification and understanding, but I became entirely invested in the main characters and their plights to save their aul, their country, and themselves.
The inclusion of historical poetry and folk songs provides a richness to the text, highlighting Kazakhstan's oral storytelling tradition. There are also hints of magical realism, which only increased to my love for this novel.
July 27, 2024
#ReadAroundTheWorld #Kazakhstan
“What a fool was Man who descended from Adam and Eve! How foolish and arrogant. Long ago, he stopped respecting Nature as a mother and began to force her to his will, attacking her again and again, ignorantly and irreparably, with increasing violence. And even though she was patient and benevolent, like a mother with her recalcitrant child, she was now taking revenge for his folly and cruelty.”
This weighty ecological fiction is the first book by Kazakh author Rollan Seisenbayev to be translated into English. It was originally published in Russian in 2002.
It is set mainly in the 1980s when Kazakhstan was part of the Soviet Union, and focuses on the fate of the Aral Sea, which was once the fourth largest lake in the world but now faces poisoning and salination around its edges. The Russian bureaucrats had decided to divert water from two rivers that previously fed the Aral Sea, careless of the catastrophic environmental and social consequences, something the book challenges with gusto.
The story is told from the perspective of a family. There is the fisherman turned Imam, Nasyr, his wife Korlan, their son Kakharman. Nasyr turns to his faith, praying for rain to replenish the drying sea. Kakharman tries to fight the system, and tackles the bureaucrats with the assistance of a Russian scientist.
I found this to be a somewhat long and meandering tale. While it is definitely an important and worthwhile read, featuring Kazakh culture, environmentalism, religion and philosophy, I didn’t find it an easy or overly enjoyable read. It is well written, poignant, if somewhat ponderous at times, but just felt too long for me. I must say though, that I am grateful that the opportunity exists for me to read stories and gain insight into faraway places and cultures, from authors who have not only been translated into English, but even converted to audiobook format. It is a wonderful thing to be able to escape our very Eurocentric, and often American dominated book market and be able to dive into previously inaccessible literary worlds.
“What a fool was Man who descended from Adam and Eve! How foolish and arrogant. Long ago, he stopped respecting Nature as a mother and began to force her to his will, attacking her again and again, ignorantly and irreparably, with increasing violence. And even though she was patient and benevolent, like a mother with her recalcitrant child, she was now taking revenge for his folly and cruelty.”
This weighty ecological fiction is the first book by Kazakh author Rollan Seisenbayev to be translated into English. It was originally published in Russian in 2002.
It is set mainly in the 1980s when Kazakhstan was part of the Soviet Union, and focuses on the fate of the Aral Sea, which was once the fourth largest lake in the world but now faces poisoning and salination around its edges. The Russian bureaucrats had decided to divert water from two rivers that previously fed the Aral Sea, careless of the catastrophic environmental and social consequences, something the book challenges with gusto.
The story is told from the perspective of a family. There is the fisherman turned Imam, Nasyr, his wife Korlan, their son Kakharman. Nasyr turns to his faith, praying for rain to replenish the drying sea. Kakharman tries to fight the system, and tackles the bureaucrats with the assistance of a Russian scientist.
I found this to be a somewhat long and meandering tale. While it is definitely an important and worthwhile read, featuring Kazakh culture, environmentalism, religion and philosophy, I didn’t find it an easy or overly enjoyable read. It is well written, poignant, if somewhat ponderous at times, but just felt too long for me. I must say though, that I am grateful that the opportunity exists for me to read stories and gain insight into faraway places and cultures, from authors who have not only been translated into English, but even converted to audiobook format. It is a wonderful thing to be able to escape our very Eurocentric, and often American dominated book market and be able to dive into previously inaccessible literary worlds.
December 7, 2019
Not always easy to get through--lots of jumps in time, unfamiliar names, and unfamiliar cultures. There's not a lot of "action" and there is a lot of philosophizing about the nature of Allah and Soviet bureaucracy--the two overlords of the people described within these pages. You'll follow an entire community from WWII through the final days of the Soviet Union. There's even some magical realism in the form of giant catfish and mythical sea creatures.
But this epic story of an entire community, slowly destroyed by Soviet policies around the Aral sea, is enraging, heartbreaking, and probably unlike anything else you are likely to read. It's also highly relevant in the time we are living through: the last days of action available to prevent catastrophic climate change. It's hard not to see parallels between the Soviet planners and current climate deniers, working hard to ignore the consequences of their decisions.
While I mostly despise Amazon (I know, they own this website) for how they treat human beings, I do appreciate their work translating and publishing translated works so they can reach a wider audience. I don't imagine this was a big money-maker for them, but I am grateful I was able to read it.
But this epic story of an entire community, slowly destroyed by Soviet policies around the Aral sea, is enraging, heartbreaking, and probably unlike anything else you are likely to read. It's also highly relevant in the time we are living through: the last days of action available to prevent catastrophic climate change. It's hard not to see parallels between the Soviet planners and current climate deniers, working hard to ignore the consequences of their decisions.
While I mostly despise Amazon (I know, they own this website) for how they treat human beings, I do appreciate their work translating and publishing translated works so they can reach a wider audience. I don't imagine this was a big money-maker for them, but I am grateful I was able to read it.
November 24, 2020
Definitely one of the most unique books I've come across so far, and one when I could feel the full weight of a nature crisis. The storytelling method of zooming in and out on characters was fantastic, and really showed how hard the translator must have had to work. There were plenty of pieces of history I just picked up on (e.g. the "great confiscations" or the Stalinist policy of forced migration of Balkars, Ingush, Kalmucks, Karachais, Crimean Tatars, Germans, Meskhetian Turks and Chechens during World War II). Just the descriptions of daily life also revealed some very charming customs, aside from the weddings and feasts (which were great), even just the formalities and manners displayed all round (e.g. "pass on my greetings and bow low for me"). I absolutely adored the kind village who had taken everyone in with great humility, but I was simultaneously shocked to learn of the stories of the orphans. All round, many sides of humanity running through this, most certainly not in a linear way and yet still very original.
Favourite translated phrases: "Horseradish is no sweeter than black radish" and "A caravan sorts itself out during the journey".
Favourite translated phrases: "Horseradish is no sweeter than black radish" and "A caravan sorts itself out during the journey".
January 22, 2020
First for the sake of transparency, I received this Kindle book from a Goodreads giveaway. That said I enjoyed the book overall. The story centers on a man, Nasyr, and his family and the destruction of the Aral Sea by decades of ecological abuse.
I have to admit my ignorance of this man-made ecological disaster. This book was really interesting and sad describing the death of the sea and its effects on not just Nasyr's family but the entire Kazakh way of life in this region. The influence of Russia and communism and the interrelationship of these countries and their peoples was also interesting. I really enjoyed learning about the Kazakh people and way of life.
The book did drag a little at points and felt a little repetitive at times. It was very much a cautionary tale and as such it was kind of on the preachy side with characters going into long declarations on the evils of man or bemoaning the situation. I know that was the point and this is truly a tragic story of what man can really do to affect nature for the worse, but it can get a bit heavy to read through.
I opted to pay the extra and add Audible narration and. I am really glad I added the audiobook as it added pronunciation of the Kazakh words that I would never have been able to get otherwise. The ebook was really nice too with a ton of footnotes giving info about important details.
Overall I enjoyed the book and learned a lot. Really glad I got this one.
I have to admit my ignorance of this man-made ecological disaster. This book was really interesting and sad describing the death of the sea and its effects on not just Nasyr's family but the entire Kazakh way of life in this region. The influence of Russia and communism and the interrelationship of these countries and their peoples was also interesting. I really enjoyed learning about the Kazakh people and way of life.
The book did drag a little at points and felt a little repetitive at times. It was very much a cautionary tale and as such it was kind of on the preachy side with characters going into long declarations on the evils of man or bemoaning the situation. I know that was the point and this is truly a tragic story of what man can really do to affect nature for the worse, but it can get a bit heavy to read through.
I opted to pay the extra and add Audible narration and. I am really glad I added the audiobook as it added pronunciation of the Kazakh words that I would never have been able to get otherwise. The ebook was really nice too with a ton of footnotes giving info about important details.
Overall I enjoyed the book and learned a lot. Really glad I got this one.
January 18, 2022
This is undoubtedly a Great novel in the same way as many Russian Greats capture a time and culture. The characters were almost Tolstoian in scope and depth but the novel had its own unique tone and was rich in Kazakh custom. The scale of the environmental tradegy and it's effect on the people of Sinemoyre, its culture was profoundly moving. I couldn't help but mourn for a way of life that was unknown to me before reading.
The detailed description of the decline of the Aral sea and its people's lives make this a dense and sometimes slightly repetitive read in places, but definitely worth the effort.
The detailed description of the decline of the Aral sea and its people's lives make this a dense and sometimes slightly repetitive read in places, but definitely worth the effort.
March 22, 2025
Há muitas mensagens políticas no romance: é uma acusação não tanto da União Soviética em si, mas da maneira como ela funcionava; é também um chamado à solidariedade social, cultural e linguística dos cazaques. Seisenbayev enche o livro com manchetes de jornais do mundo todo que não apenas situam o livro no tempo (década de 1980), mas também deixam claro que a ênfase burocrática no (chamado) progresso e desenvolvimento sobre o bem-estar dos indivíduos não se limita à República Socialista Soviética do Cazaquistão, como era então. Um livro muito atual no que diz respeito às questões climáticas.
October 18, 2019
Relevant historical and current. Spiritual and the story is tragic a bit sad but must be told and attended to. Surprised such truths came from here obviously people died telling such truths but this got published. Songs, poetry, prayers true real
December 7, 2024
Read the world challenge, Kazakhstan. Getting through this book took me a long time, which resulted from a combination of its length and complex array of characters, and its general sadness. The death of the Aral Sea, as told by Nasyr, the man who spent his life loving it.
September 18, 2019
Great read. The author wrote a story that was interesting and moved at a pace that kept me engaged. The characters were easy to invest in.
January 16, 2022
While I enjoyed learning a bit more about Kazakhstan I feel this could have been a shorter story and still maintained its integrity.
*audible
*audible
March 27, 2022
I enjoyed this meandering book about the Aral Sea and people trying to find a life after the fall of the USSR and the death of the desert.
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July 2, 2022Kazakhstan
February 18, 2023
Brutal, stark, entertaining
December 14, 2020
It is hard to say that I love this book deeply and invested so much time in what seemed a brilliant work only to feel betrayed by the end. Perhaps I did not understand...
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