"Summer Evening, Prairie Night, Land of Golden Wheat: The Outside World in Kazakh Literature offers students the best examples of Kazakh literature covering the twentieth century. The book features, in English translation, works from pre-soviet, soviet, and post-soviet Kazakhstan, and introduces students to the rich literary traditions that formed between nomads and nature. It gives students the opportunity to read the unique prose and poetry traditions of the Central Asia steppes and Eurasia.
The first part of the text is devoted to poetry, while the second part presents prose including short stories and excerpts from novellas and novels. Selected readings will enhance the understanding of unique nomadic way of life in the great Eurasia Steppe, and introduce the works of poets and writers who represent Kazakhstan’s literary and intellectual history. The book includes an extensive glossary of vocabulary specific to the region. This helps students to understand and appreciate not only the reading selections, but further explore the relationship between the nomads and the fragile environment around them.
Written for general audiences and intended as a supplemental reader for courses in Slavic, Middle Eastern, Russian, and Soviet literature or Central Asian studies and world history, and the history of world civilizations, Summer Evening, Prairie Night, Land of Golden Wheat also contributes to a global discourse on culture, sustainable development, and ecoculture.
Rafis Abazov is an adjunct professor at Columbia University in New York and a visiting professor at Al Farabi Kazakh National University in Almaty, Kazakhstan. He has numerous publications including Green Desert: The Life and Poetry of Olzhas Suleimenov (2011) and The Stories Great Steppe (2013). His research interests and publications focus on cultural globalization and the intellectual history of Central Eurasia and Russia, as well as public policy, governance, contemporary cultural, and intellectual and political trends in the region.
