Description
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThe stories of Chingiz Aitmatov and Azamat Altay are best told together, a herculean task which Jeffrey B. Lilley's Have The Mountain's Fallen? Two Journeys of Loss and Redemption in the Cold War manages deftly. . . . Their story—because it is, in essence, a single story—is that of Kyrgyzstan itself, replete with tragedy and sacrifice, hope and triumph.
* The Diplomat *
The book is the perfect combination of exhaustive research, beautiful writing, page-turning action, inspirational heroes and verbal pictures of a little known land, people and culture. With fast-paced storytelling we experience life in the Soviet Union from Stalin's Great Purges when thousands of innocent people were executed, all the way up to its collapse in 1991. We experience the torture and misery of World War II, through both men's completely different first hand experiences, the acute longing for one's homeland when one can't return, and the outwitting of the Soviet censors by a brilliant Kyrgyz author who exposes the cruelty and soulessness of the ideal "Soviet Man" in his books. And we are deeply inspired by their efforts—one inside the Soviet Union, and one outside it—to preserve the history and culture of Kyrgyzstan, and the soul of its people.
* KPC News *
Table of ContentsPreface
Acknowledgments
Note on Transliteration and Translation
List of Names
Part I
1. Flight
2. Seeds of Rebellion
3. Have the Mountains Fallen?
4. The Burdens of War
Part II
5. Chinese with a Dog
6. Recovering Dignity
7. The Sting of Rejection
8. Balancing Acts
Part III
9. American Rendezvous
10. Standing up to Injustice
11. Waves of Change
12. An Expiring Ideology
Part IV
13. The Wheels of Truth
14. New Beginnings
15. Times of Tumult
16. Holy Ground
Epilogue
Bibliography
Index
