The Backstreets: A Novel from Xinjiang
Perhat Tursun, Darren Byler (translation)Perhat Tursun’s novel is a work of untrammeled literary creativity. His evocative prose recalls a vast array of canonical world writers―contemporary Chinese authors such as Mo Yan; the modernist images & rhythms of Camus, Dostoevsky, & Kafka; the serious yet absurdist dissection of the logic of racism in Ellison’s Invisible Man―while drawing deeply on Uyghur literary traditions & Sufi poetics & combining all these disparate influences into a style that is distinctly Perhat Tursun’s own. The Backstreets is a stark fable about urban isolation & social violence, dehumanization, & the racialization of ethnicity. Yet its protagonist’s vivid recollections of maternal tenderness & first love reveal how memory & imagination offer profound forms of resilience. A translator’s introduction situates the novel in the political atmosphere that led to the disappearance of both the author & his work.