Sultan Raev Castigation review, recensie en informatie over de inhoud van de roman uit Kirgizië. Op 15 september 2025 verschijnt bij Syracuse University Press de Engelse vertaling van de roman van de Kirgizische schrijver Sultan Raev. Een Nederlandse vertaling van het boek is niet verkrijgbaar.
Sultan Raev Castigation review en recensie
- “Engaging, well-written, lively and evocative.” (Kağan Arık, University of Chicago)
- “We have very few works of contemporary Central Asian literature available in English. The publication of this wonderful novel is therefore cause for celebration.” (Adeeb Khalid, author of Central Asia: A New History from the Imperial Conquests to the Present)
- “History dreamily echoes throughout Sultan Raev’s Castigation as the serpentine narrative, under Shelley Fairweather-Vega’s pleasingly crisp translation, draws the reader into a surreal desert rich with delusion and truth.” (Anton Hur, author of Toward Eternity)
Castigation
- Auteur: Sultan Raev (Kirgizië)
- Soort boek: Kirgizische roman
- Engelse vertaling: Shelley Fairweather-Vega
- Uitgever: Syracuse University Press
- Verschijnt: 15 september 2025
- Omvang: 302 pagina’s
- Uitgave: paperback / ebook
- Prijs: $ 29.95
- Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Bol / Libris
Flaptekst van de roman uit Kirgizië van Sultan Raev
Seven escaped mental patients—including reincarnations of Genghis Khan, Cleopatra, and Alexander the Great—trudge across a nameless landscape, pursued by an omnipresent snake and haunted by their past lives’ brutal transgressions. Led by a mysterious Emperor who promises deliverance to the Holy Land, these travelers are actually pilgrims of their own fractured histories, each confronting the violent, sensual, and deeply human moments that have defined their existence.
Blending elements of Central Asian epic tradition with surrealist storytelling, Sultan Raev crafts a novel that is at once a scathing critique of power, a meditation on historical violence, and a darkly comic exploration of collective memory. The narrative weaves between present-day desert wanderings and vivid historical reconstructions, challenging readers’ understanding of identity, punishment, and spiritual transformation. Snakes slither through personal and collective histories; eclipses mark moments of existential revelation; and the line between madness and profound insight becomes provocatively blurred.
Winner of Kazakhstan’s 2014 Novel of the Year, Castigation offers a stunning meditation on humanity’s capacity for both destruction and transcendence.
Sultan Raev was born on 13 July 1958 in Oş in Kyrgyzstan. He is celebrated novelist, playwright, and former minister of culture of Kyrgyzstan. He is currently the head of the Turkic Writers’ Union, an international arts organization. This is his first novel to be published in English.