The Dead Lake
by Hamid Ismailov
transl by Andrew Bloomfield
3* out of 5
I've recently been introduced to the Peirene Press and their
series of translated short, under 200 page novels. This is the first one
I have picked up to read although I have had its write, Uzbek
journalist Hamid Ismailov
on my to be read list for sometime having come across his name via the
BBC World Service where he worked following his exile from his homeland
of Kyrgyzstan. As with all translations I check out the translator as
well. This one is by Andrew Bloomfield who I then noticed had translated several other Russian, Ukranian writers including the sci-fi series by Kazakhstan born Sergei Lukyanenko beginning with Night Watch
which I listen to on Audible some years back,a sort of vampire
storyline set in modern day Russia, good v evil, light v dark story.
The
Dead Lake of the title refers to the environmental impacts of the
Soviet block series of nuclear tests carried out at the Semipalatinsk Test Site (The Polygon) in eastern Kazahkstan between 1949 and 1989 and
Chagan Lake formed by a blast and often called the world's most
dangerous lake.
The book tells the story of a young boy Yerzhan
who grows up in a community of 2 families manning an isolated railway
stop, who makes his living selling to train passengers, and plays the
violin well. But all is not as it first seems, Yerzhan is not the twelve
year old he appears to be, because his growth has ceased. He is twenty
seven. His life has been shapped by the Steppes and by the explosions,
his isolation and the callous disregard of human beings as politicans
sanctioned a race to out do America. The fact that the continuing impact
of this still impacts Kazaks today makes the story all the more
poingant. It is as gruesome as a grizzly fairtale, reads like a folk
tale or parable. As Yerzhan's story unfolds to the unamed train
passenger narrator we see the simple humanity of the members of those
two families as the live, love, survive and die. Beautiful and sad.
(YouTube Interview with Hamid Ismailov about the Dead Lake by Columbo Post in Sri Lank)
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