About the Author

Chinghiz Aitmatov (1928 - 2008) is Kyrgyzstan's best known literary figure. His fiction, prose and plays, written in both his native Kyrgyz and in Russian, have appeared in over one hundred languages. Aitmatov was the recipient of numerous awards, including the Lenin Prize. James Riordan (1936 - 2012) was an English novelist, broadcaster, association football player and Russian scholar. Riordan's first novel Sweet Clarinet won the NASEN Award and was shortlisted for the Whitbread Children's Book Award.

Reviews

'The most beautiful love story in the world'
*Louis Aragon*

'An extremely brave, tremblingly vivid and skilful writer - a song that flew against the ideology of the time, showing that life is always bigger and more complicated than any superimposed schemes.'
*Hamid Ismailov, author of The Railway*

'The novella most vibrantly comes to life is in its evocation of the local landscapes and folk traditions... James Riordan has rendered Aitmatov's prose into simple yet lyrical English'
*The Telegraph*

'Deftly renders village life in vivid colour'
*The Times*

'Aitmatov showed the world as he saw it: full of bigotry, prejudice, cruelty, sexism, patriarchal brutality, and general lack of harmony in the way people treat each other. All this is punctuated by beautiful scenes of human kindness, wisdom, love and devotion, set against the background of the stunning central Asian landscape which he poetically evoked.'
*Booktrust*

'A beautiful love story ... the relationship that grows between Jamilia and co-worker Daniyar, a sullen soldier new to the village who has arrived wounded from the war, is subtle and beautifully developed.'
*Bookseller*