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The White Mosque

A Silk Road Memoir
By Sofia Samatar
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Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
The White Mosque traces the journey of nineteenth-century German-speaking Mennonites who settled in Central Asia, creating the village of Ak Metchet within the Muslim Khanate of Khiva. Sofia Samatar embarks on a pilgrimage exploring this forgotten Christian enclave and its rich history, intertwining stories from the Silk Road, historical figures, and her own heritage as a woman raised between Mennonite and Muslim cultures.
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Format: Hardback
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

Ideal for readers interested in religious history, cultural intersections, and personal memoirs that delve into identity and faith within complex historical contexts.

Book Hero thinking about your next read

A rich history of wanderers, exiles and intruders. A haunting personal journey through Central Asia. An intimate reflection on mixed identity shaped by cultural crossings.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

In the late nineteenth century, a group of German-speaking Mennonites travelled from Russia into Central Asia, where their charismatic leader predicted Christ would return. Over a century later, Sofia Samatar joins a tour following their path, fascinated not by the hardships of their journey, but by its aftermath: the establishment of a small Christian village in the Muslim Khanate of Khiva.

Named Ak Metchet, The White Mosque, after the Mennonites' whitewashed church, the village lasted for fifty years. In pursuit of this curious history, Samatar discovers a variety of characters whose lives intersect around the ancient Silk Road, from a fifteenth-century astronomer-king, to an intrepid Swiss woman traveller of the 1930s, to the first Uzbek photographer.

She explores Central Asian cinema, Christian martyrs, and her own complex upbringing as the daughter of a Swiss Mennonite and a Somali Muslim, raised as a Mennonite of colour in America. On Samatar's secular pilgrimage to both a lost village and a near-forgotten history, she traces the porous, ever-expanding borders of identity.

How do we enter the stories of others? And how, out of the tissue of life, with its weird incidents, buried archives, and startling connections, does a person construct a self?

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781787388079

Publisher: C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd

Format: Hardback

Date Published: 27 October 2022

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Width: 156.0mm

Height: 234.0mm

Weight: 250g

Pages: 304

Collections

Biography & Memoir Non-Fiction Religion & Spirituality Sofia Samatar

About the Author

Sofia Samatar is the author of the novels A Stranger in Olondria and The Winged Histories; the short story collection Tender; and Monster Portraits, a collaboration with her brother, the artist Del Samatar. Her work has received the IAFA William L. Crawford Fantasy Award, the Astounding Award for Best New Writer, a British Fantasy Award and a World Fantasy Award. She has also been a finalist for a Locus Award, a Hugo Award, a Nebula Award and the Calvino Prize. Her work has appeared in several 'best of the year' anthologies, including The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy. Samatar holds a PhD in African languages and literature from the University of WisconsinMadison, and she currently teaches African literature, Arabic literature in translation and speculative fiction at James Madison University.

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