{"product_id":"9781787388079","title":"The White Mosque","description":"Author: Sofia Samatar\u003cbr\u003eISBN: 9781787388079\u003cbr\u003ePublisher: Hurst Publishers\u003cbr\u003eYear first published: 01 Feb 2023\u003cbr\u003ePages: 304\u003cbr\u003eFormat: Hardback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the late nineteenth century, a group of German-speaking Mennonites travelled from Russia into Central Asia, where their charismatic leader predicted Christ would return. Over a century later, Sofia Samatar joins a tour following their path, fascinated not by the hardships of their journey, but by its aftermath: the establishment of a small Christian village in the Muslim Khanate of Khiva. Named Ak Metchet, \u0026amp;#x27;The White Mosque\u0026amp;#x27;, after the Mennonites\u0026amp;#x27; whitewashed church, the village lasted for fifty years. In pursuit of this curious history, Samatar discovers a variety of characters whose lives intersect around the ancient Silk Road, from a fifteenth-century astronomer-king, to an intrepid Swiss woman traveller of the 1930s, to the first Uzbek photographer. She explores Central Asian cinema, Christian martyrs, and her own complex upbringing as the daughter of a Swiss Mennonite and a Somali Muslim, raised as a Mennonite of colour in America. On Samatar\u0026amp;#x27;s secular pilgrimage to both a lost village and a near-forgotten history, she traces the porous, ever-expanding borders of identity. How do we enter the stories of others? And how, out of the tissue of life, with its weird incidents, buried archives, and startling connections, does a person construct a self?\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ships in 10 to 15 days","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47932611068062,"sku":"ADS-9781787388079","price":39.78,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0400\/9043\/5742\/files\/9781787388079.jpg?v=1783086187","url":"https:\/\/classicbargains.com.au\/products\/9781787388079","provider":"Classic Bargains Australia","version":"1.0","type":"link"}