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Amanai and Zamanai
Saken Zhunusov – writer, playwright and prose writer is one of the most distinguished figures in Kazakh literature. In his lifetime, he wrote four novels, more than ten plays, many collections of stories and over 100 academic articles.Zhunusov’s outstanding novel “Amanai and Zamanai” was published late in his career, in 1987. It describes the tragedy experienced by thousands of innocent people who were forcibly separated from their homeland and their social milieu by the collectivisation of the 1930s. Predetermined by their place in society, the novel’s protagonists are prevented from deciding their own fate. Nature is also described as a force influencing people’s destinies. The mountains stand as a symbol of eternity and their glaciers, winds and perilous paths underline the dramatic frailty of human life trapped in fatal, socio-historical circumstances. The book was translated into Russian and published in 1990 in the magazine “Molodaya Gvardiya”. The same magazine awarded its top prize to Saken Zhunusov for this novel. A film entitled “Zamanai” was shot in 1996, based on the novel and adapted into a screenplay by the author.
296 pages, Paperback
Published August 16, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 3, 2023
Izdomāju izlasīt kaut ko no kazahu literatūras, uztrāpījos uz lieliska stāsta par to, kā bēgot no vilka (kolektivizācijas) var uzkrist lācim (trimdas vientulībai).
September 21, 2025
I originally published this review on my blog in 2022.
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"Amanai and Zamanai"
Let’s flash back to the beginning of this cursed year. Before Russia invaded Ukraine. Before innocent protesters in Kazakhstan were declared terrorists by their own president, and were brutalised by Russian forces. Let’s flash back all the way back to January 2nd, when I first started reading Amanai and Zamanai by Kazakh author Saken Zhunusov. It’s a three-hundred page book, and I read it in two days. I would have read it in only one, but the girl’s gotta sleep, too. But how rare is it these days that I find a book I can’t put down.
When I was finished I immediately wanted to write a review. I wanted to write a thorough, in-depth analysis of this novel, and delve deep into the history of Kazakh literature during the communist reign. But that was before Qantar. Before I had to put this project aside to write about more pressing matters. Months went by and these matters were only getting worse, and I shelved this project indefinitely. I still want to write that analysis, but I don’t know enough about our literature or history to do this book justice. For now, all I can write about is how this book made me feel, and why I devoured it in two days.
Amanai and Zamanai is a modern epic. Zhunusov shows a historical drama that stretches its roots deep into the mythologized Kazakh past and reflects on the reality of late-stage Communism all at once. The story borders on magical realism, and asks us to suspend our disbelief in some parts, while at the same time making us come to terms with the harsh reality Kazakhs were facing as the new regime was taking its hold.
The story begins when a frail old woman named Balzia more or less kidnaps her only grandson from their aul and takes him on a journey across the Alatau mountains back to Kazakhstan - back home. As the boy’s mother is looking for them, the unlikely duo face dangers and tribulations crossing the mountains. But why?
In flashbacks we get to know a young Balzia - an assertive and independent woman who has just graduated from midwifery school, and is about to marry her childhood sweetheart, Atymtai. But her life turns upside down when her father is wrongfully accused by the Bolsheviks. She has to choose between her father and her fiancé - who happens to be one of the Bolsheviks’ agents. Here’s a family that’s literally being torn apart by the new regime, and while Zhunusov makes it very clear who the bad guys are, he also shows how complicated and disastrously messy politics can get when real people are affected.
Balzia makes a choice based on her integrity, and soon enough she leads her people - her aul - away from the regime, across the mountains, illustrating the real-life exodus of Kazakhs during mass collectivisation, political repressions, and then the man-made famine. In Balzia is every Kazakh woman who had to adapt, to fight, and to make difficult choices to save themselves and their families. And Balzia’s choices come with great sacrifice, deeming her aul, and her remaining family to a life in exile.
Surrealism as a way to tell the truth
When Atymtai - her long-dead fiancé comes to visit the dying Balzia, does it really happen? Or is the old woman simply delirious? The whole idea of a little boy and a dying woman crossing the Alatau mountain range is surreal in itself. The translation must be good because the magical, almost fairy-tale-like language is there to enhance the magical realism.
The Kazakh folklore imagery is surreal in and of itself, as if the culture exists on the borderland between the objective reality and the spirit world. The image of the lonely yurt under starry sky, and the whole Great Steppe as your backyard. The great unknown in the shadows, and the familiar existing right on the border.
When she takes her grandson on their adventure, we can easily explain her behavior as a sign of her creeping dementia, but when we first meet this woman, she is at death’s door and this is a very deliberate act when she makes a final attempt to take her grandson home.
The relationship between the young boy and his grandmother is central to the whole story. He is her only grandson, the last link to her dead son, and she’s determined to take him back to his homeland. A harsh and short-tempered woman, it’s with her grandson that Balzia shows her soft and tender side. These are the qualities that a life of loss hasn’t extinguished but put a damper on. It’s through this relationship that the story takes on a mythological dimension: Balzia tells her grandson a Kazakh legend about star-crossed lovers, and how their fate was connected to the Alatau mountains.
The mountains are at once that force of nature that connects the displaced Kazakhs to their roots, and the obstacle that keeps them from returning to their homeland. Mountains are cruel and unforgiving, but as the grandson is looking at them from the safety of his hospital room at the end of the book he finds comfort in them. But maybe I am projecting from my own childhood, for these are the same mountains I grew up looking at.
Mirror image
I grew up in a Russian-speaking Kazakh family. I don’t know my native tongue. I’ve lived in Sweden for more than half of my life. This search for my roots is the result of a life-long struggle with internalized racism, feelings of shame, and displacement - both cultural and geographical. I mean, I had to read this very book in English. I will never stop looking. And when I read this book it was like Zhunusov put up a mirror to my face and said, “This is you! I wrote this for you. So that you can have something to relate to.”
This is not a "typical" novel, the kind we're familiar with today, but it's brilliant in its execution. The author knew exactly what he wanted to say. The surrealism, the magical realism and the mythological storytelling surprised me. It was no doubt intentional.
Published in 1987, still during Communism, I imagine there were some... obstacles, and maybe the mythological, surrealist framing had helped Zhunusov evade some of that censorship and criticism. But the surrealism is striking and beautiful nonetheless.
________________________________
"Amanai and Zamanai"
Let’s flash back to the beginning of this cursed year. Before Russia invaded Ukraine. Before innocent protesters in Kazakhstan were declared terrorists by their own president, and were brutalised by Russian forces. Let’s flash back all the way back to January 2nd, when I first started reading Amanai and Zamanai by Kazakh author Saken Zhunusov. It’s a three-hundred page book, and I read it in two days. I would have read it in only one, but the girl’s gotta sleep, too. But how rare is it these days that I find a book I can’t put down.
When I was finished I immediately wanted to write a review. I wanted to write a thorough, in-depth analysis of this novel, and delve deep into the history of Kazakh literature during the communist reign. But that was before Qantar. Before I had to put this project aside to write about more pressing matters. Months went by and these matters were only getting worse, and I shelved this project indefinitely. I still want to write that analysis, but I don’t know enough about our literature or history to do this book justice. For now, all I can write about is how this book made me feel, and why I devoured it in two days.
Amanai and Zamanai is a modern epic. Zhunusov shows a historical drama that stretches its roots deep into the mythologized Kazakh past and reflects on the reality of late-stage Communism all at once. The story borders on magical realism, and asks us to suspend our disbelief in some parts, while at the same time making us come to terms with the harsh reality Kazakhs were facing as the new regime was taking its hold.
The story begins when a frail old woman named Balzia more or less kidnaps her only grandson from their aul and takes him on a journey across the Alatau mountains back to Kazakhstan - back home. As the boy’s mother is looking for them, the unlikely duo face dangers and tribulations crossing the mountains. But why?
In flashbacks we get to know a young Balzia - an assertive and independent woman who has just graduated from midwifery school, and is about to marry her childhood sweetheart, Atymtai. But her life turns upside down when her father is wrongfully accused by the Bolsheviks. She has to choose between her father and her fiancé - who happens to be one of the Bolsheviks’ agents. Here’s a family that’s literally being torn apart by the new regime, and while Zhunusov makes it very clear who the bad guys are, he also shows how complicated and disastrously messy politics can get when real people are affected.
Balzia makes a choice based on her integrity, and soon enough she leads her people - her aul - away from the regime, across the mountains, illustrating the real-life exodus of Kazakhs during mass collectivisation, political repressions, and then the man-made famine. In Balzia is every Kazakh woman who had to adapt, to fight, and to make difficult choices to save themselves and their families. And Balzia’s choices come with great sacrifice, deeming her aul, and her remaining family to a life in exile.
Surrealism as a way to tell the truth
When Atymtai - her long-dead fiancé comes to visit the dying Balzia, does it really happen? Or is the old woman simply delirious? The whole idea of a little boy and a dying woman crossing the Alatau mountain range is surreal in itself. The translation must be good because the magical, almost fairy-tale-like language is there to enhance the magical realism.
The Kazakh folklore imagery is surreal in and of itself, as if the culture exists on the borderland between the objective reality and the spirit world. The image of the lonely yurt under starry sky, and the whole Great Steppe as your backyard. The great unknown in the shadows, and the familiar existing right on the border.
When she takes her grandson on their adventure, we can easily explain her behavior as a sign of her creeping dementia, but when we first meet this woman, she is at death’s door and this is a very deliberate act when she makes a final attempt to take her grandson home.
The relationship between the young boy and his grandmother is central to the whole story. He is her only grandson, the last link to her dead son, and she’s determined to take him back to his homeland. A harsh and short-tempered woman, it’s with her grandson that Balzia shows her soft and tender side. These are the qualities that a life of loss hasn’t extinguished but put a damper on. It’s through this relationship that the story takes on a mythological dimension: Balzia tells her grandson a Kazakh legend about star-crossed lovers, and how their fate was connected to the Alatau mountains.
The mountains are at once that force of nature that connects the displaced Kazakhs to their roots, and the obstacle that keeps them from returning to their homeland. Mountains are cruel and unforgiving, but as the grandson is looking at them from the safety of his hospital room at the end of the book he finds comfort in them. But maybe I am projecting from my own childhood, for these are the same mountains I grew up looking at.
Mirror image
I grew up in a Russian-speaking Kazakh family. I don’t know my native tongue. I’ve lived in Sweden for more than half of my life. This search for my roots is the result of a life-long struggle with internalized racism, feelings of shame, and displacement - both cultural and geographical. I mean, I had to read this very book in English. I will never stop looking. And when I read this book it was like Zhunusov put up a mirror to my face and said, “This is you! I wrote this for you. So that you can have something to relate to.”
This is not a "typical" novel, the kind we're familiar with today, but it's brilliant in its execution. The author knew exactly what he wanted to say. The surrealism, the magical realism and the mythological storytelling surprised me. It was no doubt intentional.
Published in 1987, still during Communism, I imagine there were some... obstacles, and maybe the mythological, surrealist framing had helped Zhunusov evade some of that censorship and criticism. But the surrealism is striking and beautiful nonetheless.
March 18, 2022
Must read book for kazakhs in a journey of self-discovery.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews