{"id":11616,"date":"2011-02-25T13:58:14","date_gmt":"2011-02-25T18:58:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookdragon.si.edu\/?p=11616"},"modified":"2014-05-17T17:12:24","modified_gmt":"2014-05-17T21:12:24","slug":"earth-and-ashes-by-atiq-rahimi-translated-by-erdag-m-goknar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/earth-and-ashes-by-atiq-rahimi-translated-by-erdag-m-goknar\/","title":{"rendered":"Earth and Ashes by Atiq Rahimi, translated by Erda\u011f M. G\u00f6knar"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2011\/02\/earth-and-ashes1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-28346\" src=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2011\/02\/earth-and-ashes1.jpg\" alt=\"earth and ashes\" width=\"334\" height=\"500\" \/><\/a>With the latest ongoing violence in *fill in the blank here, alas*, Afghan writer Atiq Rahimi&#8217;s tight, sharp novella is a timely reminder of how the highest price of war is paid by innocent bystanders who by some luck escape death, but are mired in eternal suffering. The Kabul-born Rahimi, who won France&#8217;s highest literary honor\u00a0\u2013\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.academie-goncourt.fr\/?article=1229180095\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Le Prix Goncourt<\/a> \u2013 in 2008\u00a0with <em><a href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/2009\/12\/17\/the-patience-stone-by-atiq-rahimi-translated-by-polly-mclean-with-an-introduction-by-khaled-hosseini\/\">The Patience Stone<\/a><\/em>, fled Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion, escaped to Pakistan, and eventually found political asylum in France. He returned to Afghanistan in 2002 to film an adaptation of his own\u00a0<em>Earth to Ashes<\/em>; the film was an Official Selection at Cannes in 2004 and went on to win a number of awards.<\/p>\n<p>In 70 short pages, Rahimi captures lifetimes of personal, human agony. The elderly Dastaguir must seek out his son Murad to bring him unbearably tragic news: the Russian army has destroyed their village, killing the extended family. In tow is the only other survivor, Dastaguir&#8217;s grandson Yassin, who is Murad&#8217;s young son. Shrouded in silence after the violent attack, Yassin does not yet understand that he has gone deaf, and is convinced instead that everyone&#8217;s voices have somehow been stolen. His incomprehensible, silent world provides a searing metaphor for surviving war&#8217;s atrocities.<\/p>\n<p>Dastaguir and Yassin have stopped temporarily, hoping to catch a ride\u00a0to the mines where Murad works. Waiting for a passing truck, they meet a kind, gentle shopkeeper who offers tea and a willing ear to listen. Leaving his grandson to the kindness of this wise stranger, Dastaguir ventures toward Murad with a young truck driver, plagued by disturbing visions, desperate to find the best way to tell his son the gruesome truth.<\/p>\n<p>While the novella&#8217;s details are specific to the Soviet Afghan War, the story is clearly, purposefully made universal by Rahimi&#8217;s use of the second person for narration \u2013 &#8220;You close your eyes and weep quietly within.&#8221; We readers are both participants <em>and <\/em>witnesses, and as such, are held responsible for both the destruction\u00a0<em>and <\/em>prevention of war. For the sake of today&#8217;s survivors, we must somehow figure out once and for all how to choose peace every time.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/p>\n<p><strong>Published<\/strong>: 2002 (United Kingdom), 2010 (United States via <a href=\"http:\/\/www.otherpress.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Other Press<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With the latest ongoing violence in *fill in the blank here, alas*, Afghan writer Atiq Rahimi&#8217;s tight, sharp novella is a timely reminder of how the highest price of war is paid by innocent bystanders who by some luck escape death, but are mired in&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28346,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,328,6,66],"tags":[1921,6608,75,1922,189,11,135,39,45],"class_list":["post-11616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-readers","category-afghan","category-fiction","category-translation","tag-atiq-rahimi","tag-bookdragon","tag-death","tag-earth-and-ashes","tag-father-son-relationship","tag-friendship","tag-grandparents","tag-parent-child-relationship","tag-war"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.14 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Earth and Ashes by Atiq Rahimi, translated by Erda\u011f M. 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