Novel
Abai
Абай жолы
Mukhtar Auezov · 1942
Synopsis
In the Kazakh steppe of the second half of the nineteenth century, the young Abai returns from the madrasa to the aul of his father, Kunanbai, a respected and ruthless chief who would like him to be hard and fearless. More sensitive than his father, Abai watches him have old Kodar and his daughter-in-law Kamka hanged on a rumour, in order to seize winter pastures, and then keep up quarrels and alliances between clans. Married by his father to Dilda although he loves Togzhan, he learns Russian, reads Pushkin against his teachers' advice and gradually becomes a poet.
Context
The first book, Abai, appeared in 1942; the second followed in Kazakh in 1947, and the author completed the tetralogy in Moscow in 1954. The Russian translation, due for the most part to Anna Nikolskaya, whose name does not appear on the title page, served as the basis for versions in more than twenty languages. In France, Leonid Sobolev and Antoine Vitez made two volumes of it for Gallimard, in 1958 and 1960, the first preceded by a preamble by Aragon; in English, Lev Navrozov translated it in Moscow in 1950. Gabriel McGuire reads in it as much a novel of socialist realism as a national novel.
Who it is for
A great historical fresco, to be read to discover the nomadic world of the nineteenth century through the formation of a poet.
Prizes and reception
Stalin Prize, first class, for its first part, then the Lenin Prize in 1959; Aragon regarded it as one of the finest works of the century.
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