Book Review: Stone Dreams by Akram Aylisli

´If a single candle were lighted for every murdered Armenian, the light from these candles would be brighter than that of the moon´.

The literature from the post-Soviet realm is largely underrated, not only for linguistic reasons. The political priorities in the post-Cold War may be way too random to offer enough space and interest to the variety of subjects, many of very local, specific nature. 

One of the more underrepresented from the underrepresented post-Soviet literature is, by far, the Azeri one. To be honest, before hearing about Stone Dreams - Steinträume, in the translation to German from Russian by Annelore Nitschke - I have no idea about any single author from this country. 

Akram Aylisli is however an author that by writing this book created a huge controversy that put him on the black political list. After writing this book, which frontally touch upon extremely sensitive topics for the post-Soviet political life in Azerbaijan, Aylisli switched from being a ´People´s Writer´ to being a paria, attacked physically and verbally by the establishment. His fault: talking about the fate of Armenians in his country, especially the pogroms after the dismatlement of the Soviet Union.

The actor Saday Sadykhly dies following injuries he suffered for being took for an Armenian. We are in the year 1989 to 1990 and Sadykhly took upon himself more than once the task of defending the Armenians under attack following the Nakorno-Karabach conflict. 

The small realm of the conflict is the village of Aylis - the author´s pen name is inspired by it, as he was born there as Akram Najaf oglu Naibov. Hurting and killing Armenians turns to the inhabitans as a curse. What if this would be really happening in real life! Maybe crimes against fellow humans will stop by fear of losing one´s mind!

Stone Dreams is an important contribution to political literature that although touches upon extremely sensitive topics, maintains its literary value for the strength of the wording. It also made me very curious about exploring more literature from this country, and from the post-Soviet realm in general. 

Rating: 4 stars