Jamilia

#258
Title: Jamilia
Author: Chingiz Aïtmatov
Translator: James Riordan
Publisher: Telegram Press
Year: 1957/2007
Country: Kyrgyzstan
96 pages

Following up Burkett with a Kyrgyz novelist. Jamilia is more a novella than a novel. It appears to be a love story set against a backdrop of war, with multiple and conflicting loyalties and alliances, but is also an allegory about fighting for and longing for one's homeland. An enjoyable if brief novel that depicts a pastoral Kyrgyz village of more than half a century ago.