Manaschi

From the winner of the EBRD Literature Prize 2019

A former radio-presenter wrongly interprets one of his dreams and thinks that he has been initiated into the world of spirits as a manaschi, one of the Kyrgyz bards and healers reciting Manas, but instead witnesses the full scale of the epic's wrath on his life.

In his latest tragicomedy Hamid Ismailov interrogates the intersection between tradition and modernity.
A former radio-presenter wrongly interprets one of his dreams and thinks that he has been initiated into the world of spirits as a manaschi, one of the Kyrgyz bards and healers reciting Manas – the longest human epic, consisting nearly of a million verses – who are revered as people who are connected with supernatural forces. Travelling to a mountainous village populated by Tajiks and Kyrgyzs, he instead witnesses the full scale of the epic’s wrath on his life.
Following on from the award-winning The Devils' Dance and Of Strangers and Bees, this is the third and final book in Ismailov's Central Asia trilogy.