Novel
Узак жол
Not translated into English
Mukai Elebaev · 1936
Synopsis
An eleven-year-old boy tells of the Ürkün: in 1916, the Kyrgyz revolt against the mobilisation decreed by the tsar, the repression that falls on the villages around the great lake, then the flight of an entire people over the snowbound passes towards China, where hunger, cold and disease decimate families and leave children orphaned.
Context
Its author began writing in January 1934 and finished in October 1935; the volume appeared the following year at Kyrgyzmambas. He called it the first book of the novel, planning a sequel: it did not come in that form, but a long report of 1938 and two narratives of 1939 stand in for it. The book was translated into Russian in 1959 and into Latvian. Two other novels were begun in the same years, one of which, written in verse, appeared in parts from 1935.
Who it is for
One hundred and thirty-eight pages, in Kyrgyz. It is better to know that the Ürkün, the exodus of 1916, remains the central event of the country's memory, and that it was long absent from the history books.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as the first novel of Kyrgyz literature, and now on the school curriculum in the country.