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and Other Stories
by Tom Bissell
Book Reviewed by:Comment: Six stories set in Central Asia, one of them
a Pushcart Prize winner, written with deadpan irony and packing
quite a punch: Bissell's stories journey through Afghanistan,
Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan to some of the most deeply foreign places
on earth, with each story told through the eyes of Westerners - such
as two journalists stranded in wartime Afghanistan, a missionary struggling with his faith, or a female scientist investigating the Aral Sea - a particularly moving story (see the sidebar for more about the Aral Sea).
Publishers Weekly gives the collection a starred review
saying 'Bissell never flinches as he looks
straight into the starved hearts of his characters. In these
chilling stories of a region ravaged by war, exile and neglect,
desperation drives men and women to do the otherwise unthinkable,
and no one is quite forgiven for their transgressions.'
Interesting fact:
'Stan' is an ancient Farsi/Persian word meaning 'country'/'land
of'. In other words Afganistan is the land of the
Afghans, Kurdistan is the land of the Kurds, etc. The exception to
this is Pakistan, formed in 1947. Pakistan is an acronym based
on the countries who formed it: Panjab, Afghania, Kashmir
(PAK). Different sources contradict each other with regard to
whether the remaining letters represent countries, and if so which. According to the
Wikipedia encyclopedia, the word was coined
by Cambridge (UK) student and Muslim nationalist, Choudhary Rahmat
Ali, in 1933, and is an acronym of Punjab, Afghan, Kashmir, Sindh and
Baluchistan (providing the tan); the 'i' being an addition to make the word sound more natural in English. In Persian, pak also means pure, so Parkistan can also be translated as 'the land of
the pure'.
This review was originally published in The BookBrowse Review in February 2005, and has been updated for the
January 2006 edition.
Click here to go to this issue.
If you liked God Lives In St. Petersburg, try these:
by Paul Theroux
Published 2008
A master of the travel narrative weaves three intertwined novellas of Westerners transformed by their sojourns in India.
by Rick Bass
Published 2007
Rick Bass's new collection contains a broad range of characters and settings: Filled with Bass's hallmark lean and beautiful prose, they are further proof of his mastery of the short fiction form.
Happy Land
by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
From the New York Times bestselling author, a novel about a family's secret ties to a vanished American Kingdom.
Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
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