Mother Earth

Synopsis

Aitmatov is an enigma. For a start he is not Russian, but Kirgiz. Yet he has gained distinction through the medium of Russian. He writes not one but two versions of each work: first in Kirgiz, then in Russian, sometimes under a different title and in a different version, in the manner of Conrad, Nabokov and Narayan He is at once both liberal and conservative; he has been embraced by the Soviet establishment from Khrushchov to Brezhnev, Andropov to Gorbachov. Brezhnev, in fact, once set him alongside Gorky, Mayakovsky, Sholokhov and Alexey Tolstoy as essential reading for young people.