This is Not Civilization: A Novel - Couverture rigide

Rosenberg, Robert

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0618386017 ISBN 13 : 9780618386017

Editeur : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2004

Synopsis

With captivating insight, realism, and humor, this stunning debut novel tells the parallel stories of two native villages, each facing cultural extinction. It's the end of the twentieth century, and in the towering mountains of post-Soviet Central Asia, Anarbek Tashtanaliev is single-handedly providing for his small village in the face of a collapsed economy. But the cheese factory he manages no longer produces any cheese, and his favorite daughter has been stolen in an ancient nomadic courting ritual. When he is ruthlessly blackmailed, Anarbek finds himself at a crossroads between the traditional past and the uncertain future. He stands to lose everything he loves.
Half a world away, in the high canyons of Arizona, Adam Dale is a young Apache basketball star and the future hope of his tribe. He struggles to keep his family together amid the pressures of reservation poverty and the corrupt rule of his increasingly bull-headed father, the tribal councilman.
Anarbek and Adam seek out the one person they think will be the solution to all their problems: a peripatetic American aid worker who'd once volunteered in both of their villages. Now working as a refugee resettlement officer in Istanbul, Jeff Hartig must suddenly play host to first one, then both of these men from his past. Soon, Anarbek's disgraced daughter joins them and the unlikely foursome find themselves sharing an apartment in the magical, sprawling city. Equally fascinated and perplexed by one another, they discover hope, then friendship, then love, unaware that they will soon face one of the most disastrous earthquakes of the century. Yet it is only in traveling so far, and surviving so much, that each person realizes his or her own capacity to endure.
Sweeping, compassionate, and deeply moving, this novel celebrates the power of human connection in a largely unsettled world. Robert Rosenberg is an original and important new voice in contemporary fiction.

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

With captivating insight, realism, and humor, this stunning debut novel tells the parallel stories of two native villages, each facing cultural extinction. It's the end of the twentieth century, and in the towering mountains of post-Soviet Central Asia, Anarbek Tashtanaliev is single-handedly providing for his small village in the face of a collapsed economy. But the cheese factory he manages no longer produces any cheese, and his favorite daughter has been stolen in an ancient nomadic courting ritual. When he is ruthlessly blackmailed, Anarbek finds himself at a crossroads between the traditional past and the uncertain future. He stands to lose everything he loves.
Half a world away, in the high canyons of Arizona, Adam Dale is a young Apache basketball star and the future hope of his tribe. He struggles to keep his family together amid the pressures of reservation poverty and the corrupt rule of his increasingly bull-headed father, the tribal councilman.
Anarbek and Adam seek out the one person they think will be the solution to all their problems: a peripatetic American aid worker who'd once volunteered in both of their villages. Now working as a refugee resettlement officer in Istanbul, Jeff Hartig must suddenly play host to first one, then both of these men from his past. Soon, Anarbek's disgraced daughter joins them and the unlikely foursome find themselves sharing an apartment in the magical, sprawling city. Equally fascinated and perplexed by one another, they discover hope, then friendship, then love, unaware that they will soon face one of the most disastrous earthquakes of the century. Yet it is only in traveling so far, and surviving so much, that each person realizes his or her own capacity to endure.
Sweeping, compassionate, and deeply moving, this novel celebrates the power of human connection in a largely unsettled world. Robert Rosenberg is an original and important new voice in contemporary fiction.

Revue de presse

A wonderful work; highly recommended.
Library Journal Starred

An ambitious, bighearted debut...intelligent, earnest, and highly readable.
Kirkus Reviews

[A] Politically astute and surprisingly swift read.
TimeOut New York

The details are bracing and exact...journalistic, humane and heart-wrenching. -- Christopher Buckley The New York Times Book Review

What a generous, big-hearted book this is, perceptive enough to catch the goodness in [its characters].
Christian Science Monitor

[an] ambitious, sincere book...[with] many lovely touches.
Newsday

a well-written, engaging, and promising debut.
Booklist, ALA

a brave adventure into the heart of a new world...sparkling.
Los Angeles Times

Rollicking...pitch perfect...a vibrant mix of the serious and the absurd.

Publishers Weekly

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Date d'édition: 2004
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0618386017
• ISBN 13: 9780618386017
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 304
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: Yeepin GmbH; 492000000000; sunshine12232@outlook.com; ; Alleestr.11; Kaiserslautern; Rheinland-Pfalz; 67655; Allemagne