Earth and Ashes - Atiq Rahimi

Posted : 3 years ago at Nov 16 18:38

First published in 2000, Atiq Rahimi's Earth And Ashes is a short novella set in his native Afghanistan (he's another one of those writers that run away to France, like Milan Kundera and Gao Xingjian when the going gets tough) during the time of the Russian occupation. Told in the second person, it puts the reader into the shoes - or should that be sandals? - of Dastaguir, and elderly man sitting at the roadside with his grandson, Yassin, for company. The story revolves around Dastaguir (that's you!) taking his grandson to see Murad, the link between their generations. Murad works in a mine out in the mountains, a barren landscape of loose rock and dust. His mother, wife, and brother have just been lost when their village has been razed to the ground by Russian bombs. Dastaguir, with Ya...Read more

Rating : 8/10