The Day Lasts More than a Hundred Years
The Day Lasts More than a Hundred Years by Chingiz Aitmatov, translated by John French
I thought this would be a science-fiction story, because I vaguely remember phrases like “aliens” and “building rockets around the world” when I first saw it in a random booklist. But it’s actually first of all a story about a man’s life in the Soviet Union, and the life and deaths of his friends. It happens in the Soviet Union, but this story is not set at the center of it. Not the glorious Motherland Russia that started the revolution, but in Kazakhstan, where religion, traditions, and old legends are perhaps a bit more at odds with the Soviet ideals.