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Of Strangers and Bees
£9.99
Hamid Ismailov’s new novel spans centuries and half the globe. It tells the story of Sheikhov, an Uzbek writer in exile, not unlike the author himself. Guided by a dream, he sets out to find the renowned polymath Avicenna, convinced that the medieval ‘sheikh of all knowledge’ did not die in the 11th century AD, but has in fact been condemned to roam the world, just like him. Sheikhov’s search for Avicenna, and his attempts to earn a living and a little respect outside his native land, send him through Western Europe and the United States. Everywhere he goes, he finds traces of Avicenna, and with them, traces of his own ambiguous cultural and religious heritage. A unique story about storytelling, ‘The Whirling Bee’ is also a kaleidoscopic exploration of being ‘a stranger in foreign lands’.
Description
From the winner of the EBRD Literature Prize, East meets West in a modern Sufi parable about the search for truth. ‘Learned, strange and charming.’ — The Guardian. In the latest thrilling multi-stranded epic from the award-winning author of The Devils’ Dance, an Uzbek writer in exile follows in the footsteps of the medieval polymath Avicenna, who shaped Islamic thought and science for centuries. Waking from a portentous dream, Uzbek writer Sheikhov is convinced that Avicenna still lives. Condemned to roam the world. Avicenna appears across the ages, from Ottoman Turkey to medieval Germany and Renaissance Italy. Sheikhov plies the same route, though his troubles are distinctly modern as he endures the petty humiliations of exile. Hamid Ismailov has crafted another masterpiece, combining traditional oral storytelling with contemporary global fiction to create a modern Sufi parable about the search for truth and wisdom.
