Comments on: Central Asia Literary Guide & Suggested Books

By: Lucy

Lucy — Sun, 02 Jul 2006 22:06:55 +0000

Colin Thubron has just written a new book ‘Shadows of the Silk Road’ coming out in September. I think it’s an attempt to update his previous look at Central Asia, whilst also bringing in China etc.

I agree with all Alexander’s books above and certainly The Railway. Also, a new book “The Silent Steppe” by Mukhamet Shayakhmetov which chronicles his early life during the sedenterization and collectivization of the Kazakhs under Stalin.

Tamerlane by Justin Marozzi is a good read and gives a real feel for what Samarkand once was with 25 gardens surrounding the city which Timur moved between with his tents when he wasn’t on campaign.

For historical accounts (which all seem to be by women) there are Ella Maillart’s Turkestan Solo, An English Lady in Chinese Turkestan by Lady Macartney, A Journal of the First Afghan War by Lady Florentia Sale. I could go on and on. This should be a good start though!

By: Alexander

Alexander — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 12:51:31 +0000

It’s Thubron, not Thurbon

By: Otto Pohl

Otto Pohl — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 10:30:38 +0000

I have read Thurbon’s _Lost Heart of Asia_ and his book on Siberia. The Central Asian book is better in my opinion. It is much less melancholy than his Siberian book by the way.

Although technically not a travel book, _The Devil and the Dissapearing Sea_ is also definitely worth reading for a sketch of how the Uzbek government works on a micro level. The author is a Canadian working with an ngo to try and save the Aral Sea. He concludes that it is hopeless.

By: Nathan

Nathan — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 05:30:57 +0000

Has anyone read Colin Thurbon’s stuff? I found it engaging, if a bit melancholy. “Lost Heart of Asia” (or something like that) is a great overview and traveler’s perspective.

By: Nick

Nick — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 09:08:31 +0000

Dennis, I recently read a very strange and wonderful novel by an English writer, DM Thomas, called Ararat. It was published about 25-years ago and, as the the title indicates, is sort of about Armenia – though it’s as much as literary exercise in playing with narrative roles and creative inspiration. Tbh, I picked it up at a bookstall on account of it’s title alone, assuming that it must be in some way be connected with the film of the same name by Atom Egoyan; it’s not, but it’s the sort of pleasant surprise one gets when one picks up something solely on the basis of a gut-instinct.

By: Dennis

Dennis — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 04:00:14 +0000

I second the Shteyngart recommendation. He attended college near Cleveland (Oberlin College), which has a very large post-Soviet population, including many Russian-speaking Jews. He wrote his senior thesis on The Republic of Moldova, The Republic of Georgia and Azerbaijan. His first book, “The Russian Debutante’s Handbook” is so “right on” that I had to set it down I was laughing so hard.

Are there any recommendations on fiction/non-fiction from or about Eastern Europe or the Caucasus? (Excluding the obvious–Solzhenitsyn and Romanian poets/authors like Creanga or Eminescu) I just thought I’d ask…

By: Otto Pohl

Otto Pohl — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 01:09:22 +0000

If you are taking an expansive view of Central Asia I would include Kipling’s, _Kim_ which was Hopkirk’s inspiration to research the “Great Game.” Hopkirk also has a book tracing the real people and places _Kim_ is based upon called _In Search of Kim_. If you are a fan of _Kim_ I highly recommend Hopkirk’s book on the novel. Karl Meyer’s _Dust of Empire: The Race for Mastery in the Asian Heartland_ is a good general introduction to the region. Also a good companion to Hopkirk’s _The Great Game_ is Karl Meyer and Shareen Brysac, _Tournament of Shadows_. For a good read on the British in the NWFP there is Charles Allen, _Soldier Sahibs: The Men Who Made the North-West Frontier_. I have a list of scholarly works on Kazakhstan and Central Asia under Soviet rule somewhere in the archives of my blog.

By: Laurence

Laurence — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 15:11:01 +0000

How about Gary Shteyngart’s ABSURDISTAN? I’m reading it now, and it is pretty funny. Not a scholarly book though, a comic novel. Kathleen Hopkirk’s CENTRAL ASIA: A TRAVELLER’S COMPANION is a good survey. On a more scholarly note, Martha Brill Olcott’s book CENTRAL ASIA’S SECOND CHANCE has a lot of interesting facts and figures brought together from a variety of sources. I would agree with Alexander on Lord Curzon’s RUSSIA IN CENTRAL ASIA. Curzon once said something like: “Don’t be a Russophobe or a Russophile, be a realist about Russia.” If only American policy-makers would take his advice to heart, today…

By: Nick

Nick — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 09:04:34 +0000

From the travel perspective, I would add Eric Newby’s “A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush”, which is a wonderfully wry account of an attempt by a pair of amateur climbers to ascend the Hindu Kush (and being called a “pair of pansies” by Wilfred Thesiger), and also Nick Danziger’s imaginitively-titled “Danziger’s Travels”, which some people may find a little over-preening and egotisitical but nevertheless is a highly-enagaging account of a hair-raising journey across Asia, particularly the section about Afghanistan (which he crossed on foot at the height of the Socviet occupation).

By: Alexander

Alexander — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 08:17:02 +0000

Sorry, I’m rather monopolising this discussion. I notice that Bissell recommends Ahmed Rashid’s imaginatively titled “Jihad” as a primer on the “Islamic threat” to Central Asia. I would beg to disagree here. Rashid’s book on the Taliban was excellent, because he had spent years in Afghanistan and fully understood how their rise was bound up with Pakistani politics, the ISI and the smuggling mafia of the tribal areas in Baluchistan and the N.W.F.P. This does not translate into an expertise on the Post-Soviet states of Central Asia, and in my view he grossly exaggerates the Islamic threat by projecting the religious extremist attitudes prevalent in much of Pakistan and Afghanistan onto Central Asians, whose history over the last eighty years has been radically different.