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Originally published: Paris: Editions L'Harmattan, 2001.
About the author
Hamid Ismailov (born 1954), an Uzbek journalist and writer, was forced to flee Uzbekistan for the United Kingdom in 1992, where he took a job with the BBC World Service.Although his works are banned in Uzbekistan, he has published dozens of books in Uzbek, Russian, French, German, Turkish and other languages. These include books of poetry (Sad ('Garden'), 1987; Pustynya ('Desert'), 1988), of visual poetry (Post Faustum, 1990; Kniga Otsutstvi, 1992, novels (Sobranie Utonchyonnyh, 1988; Le Vagabond Flamboyant, 1993; Hay-ibn-Yakzan, 2001; Hostage to Celestial Turks, 2003; Doroga k smerti bol'she chem smert' ('The Road To Death Is Bigger Than Death'), 2005), and many others.He has translated Russian and Western classics into Uzbek, and Uzbek and Persian classics into Russian and other Western languages.Written before he left Uzbekistan, Ismailov's novel The Railway was the first to be translated into English. Published in 2006, it was translated by Robert Chandler, following a Russian edition which had been published in Moscow in 1997. His triptych of novels comprising Mbobo, Googling For Soul and Two Lost To Life have also been translated into English with the help of an Arts Council grant.Ismailov has been a Writer in Residence for the BBC World Service since April 2010.
Summary
In the latest thrilling multi-stranded epic from the award-winning author of The Devils’ Dance, an Uzbek writer in exile traces the fate of the medieval polymath Avicenna, who shaped Islamic thought and science for centuries. The novel follows Avicenna across the ages from Ottoman Turkey to medieval Germany and Renaissance Italy.
