Death of the Snake Catcher: Short Stories

This book features people from one of the most closed countries of todays world where the passage of time resembles the passage of a caravan through the waterless desert. This world has been recreated by a true-born son of that mysterious country a Turkmen who at the will of fate has now been living for a quarter of a century in snowy Scandinavia. Is that not why two different worlds come together in Ryazan horseradish and Tula gingerbread to come apart in Love in Lilac in which a student from the non-free world falls in love with a girl from the West?In the story Death of the Snake Catcher an old snake catcher meets one on one with a giant cobra in the heart of the desert. In the dialogue between them the author unveils the age-old interdependence of Man and untamed nature where the fear and mistrust of the strong and the hopes and apprehensions of the weak change places but co-exist as ever. Egyptian night of fear in which a boy goes to an Eastern bazaar and falls into the clutches of depraved forces is created in the writers characteristic style of magical realism while the novella Altynai celebrates first love radiant and sad pure as virgin snow.Now mythical now lyrical Welsapars characters face lifes injustice with a surprising optimism and fortitude. The intense Asiatic colour not only of nature but of human feelings and relationships is expressed by the author in striking expressive language making the reader unable to close the book until the last page.