The Devil's Dance, by Hamid Ismailov
세부 정보
Join us as we continue our tour of Asian literature by discussing this standout work of contemporary Uzbek literature!
Publisher's description:
"On New Years' Eve 1938, the writer Abdulla Qodiriy is taken from his home by the Soviet secret police and thrown into a Tashkent prison. There, to distract himself from the physical and psychological torment of beatings and mindless interrogations, he attempts to mentally reconstruct the novel he was writing at the time of his arrest based on the tragic life of the Uzbek poet-queen Oyhon, married to three khans in succession, and living as Abdulla now does, with the threat of execution hanging over her. As he gets to know his cellmates, Abdulla discovers that the Great Game of Oyhon's time, when English and Russian spies infiltrated the courts of Central Asia, has echoes in the 1930s present, but as his identification with his protagonist increases and past and present overlap it seems that Abdulla's inability to tell fact from fiction will be his undoing.
The Devils' Dance brings to life the extraordinary culture of 19th century Turkestan, a world of lavish poetry recitals, brutal polo matches, and a cosmopolitan and culturally diverse Islam rarely described in western literature. Hamid Ismailov's virtuosic prose recreates this multilingual milieu in a digressive, intricately structured novel, dense with allusion, studded with quotes and sayings, and threaded through with modern and classical poetry.
With this poignant, loving resurrection of both a culture and a literary canon brutally suppressed by a dictatorship which continues today, Ismailov demonstrates yet again his masterful marriage of contemporary international fiction and the Central Asian literary traditions, and his deserved position in the pantheon of both."
If you don't have a physical copy of the book, you can find a copy of it here:
Our plan is to meet at Dokdabang Cafe (독수리 다방) in Sinchon, which is on the 8th floor of the building indicated on the map linked to on this page. The address of Dokdabang is 36, Yonsei-ro, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul 03776. Below are Kakao Maps and Naver Maps links to the cafe:
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Every 2 weeks on Sunday until November 30, 2028
The Devil's Dance, by Hamid Ismailov