{"product_id":"the-backstreets-9780231202916","title":"The Backstreets","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Backstreets \u003c\/i\u003eis an astonishing novel by a preeminent contemporary Uyghur author who was disappeared by the Chinese state. Perhat Tursun follows an unnamed Uyghur man who comes to the capital of Xinjiang. Seeking to escape the pain and poverty of the countryside, he finds only cold stares and rejection.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNamed a Best Book of 2022 by \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e * The New Yorker *\u003cbr\u003eClose to a perfect work of art. -- Ed Park * The Atlantic *\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Backstreets\u003c\/i\u003e is an agonizing testimony to the anti-Uyghur policies and prejudices that led to [Tursun and the co-translator's] disappearances. It is also good writing of the sort that makes me feel like somebody has wrenched my head 90 degrees to the left: It's both clear and disorienting, an utterly new way of describing the world. -- Lily Meyer * NPR Books *\u003cbr\u003eVisceral and often disorientating, \u003ci\u003eThe Backstreets \u003c\/i\u003eillustrates the painful effects of racism and exclusion. It is a strange and devastating novel, a portrait of what it means to become a second-class citizen in your homeland. * The Economist *\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Backstreets\u003c\/i\u003e is undoubtedly an important political document, but it is, most of all, a significant addition to the canon of outsider literature. -- Sam Sacks * Wall Street Journal *\u003cbr\u003ePoignant and disturbing . . . Life as a persecuted minority colours the book, but Tursun breaks loose of narrow victimhood. \u003ci\u003eThe Backstreets\u003c\/i\u003e is a compelling read in its own right. -- Cindy Yu * The Spectator *\u003cbr\u003eA startling literary document of urban alienation. * The New Yorker *\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Backstreets\u003c\/i\u003e is a politically charged, emotional novel about the impacts of prejudice, industrial city life, and  desolation on China’s Uyghur people. It is a major literary event that is honest in its portrayal of oppression. -- Monica Carter * Foreword Reviews, starred review *\u003cbr\u003e[A] slight, sorrowful, tone-perfect novel . . . Tursun’s novel sings with a kind of lyrical despair and anomie, all rendered with sensual depth and persuasiveness. -- Tom Sandborn * Vancouver Sun *\u003cbr\u003eThere are many political – and perhaps ethical – reasons why \u003ci\u003eThe Backstreets\u003c\/i\u003e deserves a wide readership. But above these should be an appreciation of its literary merits, not least of which are its sustained tone and imagery (well conveyed by Darren Byler and his co-translator). -- Nick Holdstock * Times Literary Supplement *\u003cbr\u003eOne of \u003ci\u003eThe Millions'\u003c\/i\u003e Most Anticipated Books of 2022 * The Millions *\u003cbr\u003eThe publication of Perhat Tursun's \u003ci\u003eThe Backstreets\u003c\/i\u003e, together with Darren Byler's illuminating introduction, is a landmark event in English-language world literature. Tursun's narration of the life of an Uyghur office worker in Ürümchi is unforgettable and quietly mindblowing. The style, mood, and scope are evocative of Camus (or maybe of an alternative Camus who wrote from an Algerian perspective), while still feeling utterly distinctive and unprecedented. A triumph. -- Elif Batuman, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Idiot\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWryly intelligent, acutely receptive to the sounds and smells of the life around him, but also half crazy, convinced that the universe is bombarding him with messages in a code he cannot read, and—finally—subjected to the casual contempt of his Han Chinese masters, Perhat Tursun's young hero gives us a darkly poetic record of a struggle to make sense of a world of oppression. A brave and heartrending book. -- J. M. Coetzee, recipient of the Nobel Prize\u003cbr\u003eTursun, as rendered into English by Byler and Anonymous, writes with the ease and confidence of some of the greatest philosophical and absurdist writers of the twentieth century. -- Lauren Bo * Asymptote *\u003cbr\u003eThe tragedy of the Uyghurs  deserves nothing less than this absolutely brilliant and penetrating book. It is a moral imperative for readers to understand what is happening to this besieged population, and Perhat Tursun's prose is worthy of Kafka's. -- Gary Shteyngart, author of \u003ci\u003eOur Country Friends: A Novel\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf there ever is a work of literature that captures the existential condition of presently intensifying settler colonization of an indigenous city, it is Perhat Tursun’s short, masterful novel \u003ci\u003eThe Backstreets\u003c\/i\u003e.  This beautifully translated novel should be on the reading list for every conscientious person and adopted for world literature classes on high school, college, and graduate levels. -- Shu-mei Shih, University of California, Los Angeles\u003cbr\u003eA fierce and brave cry of moral repugnance. -- Bill Marx * The Arts Fuse *\u003cbr\u003eA modernist masterpiece about life in China’s Muslim heartland. -- Bradley Jardine * Coda Story *\u003cbr\u003eTursun constructs a psychoanalytical auto-fictional biography of a city at the borders of the Chinese state, showing us the ordinary alienation and the mundane repression Uyghur bodies are subjected to in their everyday life. . .The existence of this text in English is a truly luminous event for world literature. -- Serena De Marchi * Cha: An Asian Literary Journal *\u003cbr\u003eA remarkable work. -- John Alvey * The Modern Novel *\u003cbr\u003e[A]n excellent work and a pleasure to read.  In a relatively short novel, the writer manages to express a people’s plight wrapped up in a story of a walk, and in the pollution that surrounds the walker. -- Tony Malone * Tony's Reading List *\u003cbr\u003e[A] disturbing, socially vital work of literature... -- Anita Felicelli * Words Without Borders *\u003cbr\u003e[D]isorienting, disturbing, evoking a swirl of feelings in the reader. -- Emily Walz * Washington Independent Review of Books *\u003cbr\u003eGiven its author’s disappearance, \u003ci\u003eThe Backstreets\u003c\/i\u003e will inevitably be received as a totem to the Uyghurs, first and foremost. It is that. But it is also more: a rare book that stands out because of the oppressive intensity of its narrative style, one reminiscent of the modernist writers (Dostoevsky, Camus, Freud) . . . At the same time, it carves out a distinctive voice that is uniquely bleak and beautiful. -- Luke Hallam * The Guardian *\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Backstreets\u003c\/i\u003e reads like a mash-up between Kafka and David Lynch. -- Tom Bowden * The Book Beat *\u003cbr\u003eA work of creative genius that takes as its theme the homelessness many Uyghurs feel as strangers in their own land. -- Yangyang Cheng * The Nation *\u003cbr\u003eThis is a hugely important novel both as an excellent work of narrative art and as the encapsulation of the plight of an imperiled, suppressed ethnic group and its culture. Its translator, Darren Byler, should be loudly applauded for rendering this key text into lucid, well-judged English and bringing it to a global audience, as should his anonymous Uyghur co-translator. -- Oliver Dixon * World Literature Today *\u003cbr\u003eOne of my favourite novels of recent times. -- Nilanjana Roy * Financial Times *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIntroduction\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Backstreets\u003c\/i\u003e","brand":"Columbia University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48864262914391,"sku":"9780231202916","price":15.29,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780231202916.jpg?v=1722271131","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/the-backstreets-9780231202916","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}