A Book Launch and Conversation about Akram Aylisli's Peoples & Trees
Thursday, November 21, 2024 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM EST
Writers Center, 4508 Walsh Street, Bethesda, MD 20815
Don't forget to mark your calendars for November 21, 2024, at 6 p.m. We're excited to invite you to the launch of Plamen Press's latest publication, People and Trees, by Azerbaijani writer and playwright Akram Aylisli, translated by Katherine E. Young. This event will take place in the Reading Room of The Writer's Center. The launch is a collaboration between the Alan Cheuse International Writers Center, The Writer’s Center, and Plamen Press. The event will feature literary translator and poet Katherine E. Young, as well as journalist and Caucasus regional expert Thomas de Waal. The panel will be moderated by journalist and novelist Joanne Leedom-Ackerman.
Set in the mountains of Azerbaijan just after World War II, People and Trees chronicles the wrenching transformation of traditional Azeri society under Soviet rule. Private land is collectivized; mosques are converted to silk factories or bulldozed to build “palaces of culture.” The young narrator, Sadyk, fantasizes about striding hand-in-hand with a beautiful girl into the bright, socialist future he’s seen on the movie screen. The village women, meanwhile, navigate religious, economic, and social upheaval, including famine and the loss of an entire generation of men to war. Drawing on the rich folkloric traditions of the Caucasus mountains, this timeless collection of tales is the work that put Azerbaijan’s greatest living author on the international literary map.
Author: Akram Aylisli
Akram Aylisli is an Azerbaijani novelist, playwright, and editor. His works have been translated into more than twenty languages. Among his publications in English is Farewell Aylisli, a trilogy of novellas including the controversial Stone Dreams, which explores themes of understanding and mutual accountability among Azerbaijanis and Armenians. The publication of Stone Dreams in 2012 led to public burnings of Aylisli’s books in Azerbaijan. Since 2016, he has been the target of a politically motivated criminal investigation by the Azerbaijani government that imposes significant restrictions on all his activities; he lives under de facto house arrest in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Moderator: Joanne Leedom-Ackerman
Joanne Leedom-Ackerman is an American novelist, short story writer, and journalist. Her notable works include The Far Side of the Desert, Burning Distance, the regional bestseller The Dark Path to the River, the short story collection No Marble Angels, and PEN Journeys: Memoir of Literature on the Line. She is also the senior editor of The Journey of Liu Xiaobo: From Dark Horse to Nobel Laureate. Leedom-Ackerman has been honored with several awards for her commitment to human rights and social justice, including the Human Rights Award from the United Nations Association of the National Capital Area and the Courage in Literary Publishing Award from PEN New England. Additionally, she serves as a Vice President of PEN International and has held the positions of International Secretary of PEN International and Chair of PEN International's Writers in Prison Committee.
Panelists
Thomas de Waal
Thomas de Waal is a journalist who specializes in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus region. He has worked for the Moscow Times, the Times of London, and the Economist, focusing on Russian politics and the situation in Chechnya. De Waal is the author of Great Catastrophe: Armenians and Turks in the Shadow of Genocide and Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War, considered an authoritative book on the Nagorny Karabakh conflict. Additionally, he co-authored the book Chechnya: Calamity in the Caucasus with Carlotta Gall, and both authors were awarded the James Cameron Prize for Distinguished Reporting. De Waal is also a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Katherine E. Young
Katherine E. Young is the author of the poetry collections Woman Drinking Absinthe and Day of the Border Guards (2014 Miller Williams Arkansas Poetry Prize finalist) and the editor of Written in Arlington. She has translated work by Anna Starobinets (memoir), Akram Aylisli (fiction), and numerous Russian-language poets from Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine. Awards include the Granum Foundation Translation Prize, the Pushkin House Translation Residency, an Arlington County (Virginia) Individual Artist Grant, a National Endowment for the Arts translation fellowship, and a Hawthornden fellowship (Scotland). From 2016-2018, she served as the inaugural Poet Laureate of Arlington, Virginia.
