..". a rewarding book." -- Times LiterarySupplement

Set in the vast windswept Central Asian steppes and theinfinite reaches of galactic space, this powerful novel offers a vivid view of theculture and values of the Soviet Union's Central Asian peoples.

Jamilia's husband is off fighting at the front. She spends her days hauling sacks of grain from the threshing floor to the train station in their small village in the Caucasus, accompanied by Seit, her young brother-in-law, and Daniyar, a sullen newcomer to the village who has been wounded on the battlefield. Seit observes the beautiful, spirited Jamilia spurn men's advances, and wince at the dispassionate letters she receives from her husband. Meanwhile, undeterred by Jamilia's teasing, Daniyar sings as they return each evening from the fields. Soon Jamilia is in love, and she and Daniyar elope just as her husband returns.

This edition is Mukhtar Shahanov's authorized reprint of Walter May translation of "The Plaint of the Hunter Above the Abyss" book initially published by Atamura in 1998. This is a book-dialogue between two famous pundits, the renowned Kirghizian novelist Chingiz Aitmatov and the legendary Kazakh poet Mukhtar Shakhanov - defending their fundamental faith in the spiritual resources of each and every human being. As such, they explore the moral significance of endlessly recurrent existential dislocations characterising everyone's sense of Personalist encounter with the world around them. A discussion taking them through the riddles posed by ancient philosophies, Turkic histories, African priest-magicians, two-fanged poisonous fish, modern zombism, and Genghis Khan's Golden Hoard: all the way to power politics in the Kremlin, the risks taken by Premier Mikhail Gorbachev as well as the duties, not to mention the obligations, of writers serving in the sphere of international public affairs.

"There is life hidden within stones. Only we human beings can give meaning to all things in the cosmos through thought and words." With these haunting and resonant words did Kyrgyz writer and novelist Chingiz Aitmatov, who died in June 2008, summarize the dialogue that he undertook with leading Buddhist leader Daisaku Ikeda. Aitmatov is best known for his novella "Jamila," on the publication of which he achieved great fame in the Soviet Union in 1958. But after the Soviet Union's collapse, this writer, who is often lauded as one of the great Soviet authors, felt that his work had been passed over. "Ode to the Grand Spirit" is both an enduring tribute to the thought of a powerful writer and a fascinating individual as well as a profound reflection on such themes of the process of literary creation, spiritual growth and the essence of humanity.