PEOPLE AND TREES

Three novellas and a short story track the transformation of an Eastern European village through World War II and Sovietization.

Sadyk is born in the mountains of Azerbaijan, and on the very day he begins his tumultuous life, he loses his mother. He’s raised by his father, Nadzhaf, who sells muskmelons grown on the village’s collective farm, and his Aunt Medina. One day, with little ceremony, Nadzhaf announces that he’s sold the family’s cow and will leave town, likely never to return; he’s been conscripted to fight against the German fascists in the war, and author Aylisli heartbreakingly renders the character’s farewell to his loved ones: “I’ll say what I must. I stand guilty before you, Medina: I’ve driven you into this wretched hole. I’m not coming back. Forgive me, for God’s sake!” He never does return, and Sadyk is raised by Medina and her belligerent husband, Mukush, who’s bitter about the fact that his grandfather’s land has been commandeered by a newly established Soviet collective. Mukush is called to war, as well, and the village is stripped of its able men by a conflict that, as Sadyk sees it, is “poisoning every living thing around it.” In this haunting work, expertly translated from Russian by Young, Aylisli chronicles the transformation of the village through the maturing eyes of Sadyk, who grows from a bookish boy into a student headed for university. The author vividly portrays how Soviet ideology aggressively alters traditional ways of life, as when a factory is sacrilegiously built within a building that houses a mosque. For all its political insight, though, the novel’s heart is its depiction of the relationship between Sadyk and Aunt Medina; even during the most troubled of times, the protagonist takes great solace in believing that “there [is] just the two of us in this endless expanse.” Overall, this is a remarkable work that’s historically edifying and dramatically arresting.

A unique look into a culture and era that’s underrepresented in fiction.