REEES | Shahzoda Samarqandi: Love and Loss in the Cotton Fields

Shahzoda Samarqandi, a Tajik novelist, poet, and journalist from Uzbekistan, has drawn
praise from Persian and Russian critics and readers for her intense visions of ecocide, imperial collapse, and fundamentalism in modern Eurasia. Samarqandi will read from the brand new English translation of her novel Mothersland (Slavica, 2024), an intergenerational epic about love and memory in Uzbekistan's toxic cotton fields. A conversation with Sam Hodgkin (Comparative Literature) and Claire Roosien (Slavic) will follow.

This event is co-sponsored by the Central Asia Initiative, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Slavic Department, Center for Middle East Studies, Program in Iranian Studies, and Department of Comparative Literature. Sponsored by the Edward J. and Dorothy Clarke Kempf Memorial Fund.

This is part of a series on Central Asia in Focus: Expanding the Scope of Regional Studies.