A Poet and Bin-Laden

Hamid Ismailov, the acclaimed author of The Railway, is an Uzbek poet and writer who was forced to flee Uzbekistan in 1992 and came to the UK, where he took a job with the BBC World Service. Writer in Residence of the BBC World Service whose works are banned in Uzbekistan, Ismailov has followed the history of Islamic radicalism in Central Asia and in Afghanistan starting from its very beginning in the late 80-ies, and as the BBC journalist travelled to Talibani Afghanistan to meet their elite. His observations and experiences have become part of the highly topical book A Poet and Bin-Laden.

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The "reality novel" A Poet and Bin-Laden, set in Central Asia at the turn of the 21st century against a swirling backdrop of Islamic fundamentalism in the Ferghana Valley and beyond, gives a first-hand account on the militants and Taliban's internal life.

The novel begins on the eve of 9/11, with the narrator's haunting description of the airplane attack on the Twin Towers as seen on TV while he is on holiday in Central Asia; and tells the story of an Uzbek poet Belgi, who was disappointed in the authoritarian regime in Uzbekistan and became a terrorist in the eyes of the world. His journey begins with a search for a Sufi spiritual master and ends in guerrilla warfare, and it is this tension between a transcendental and a violent response to oppression, between the book and the bomb, between Archipelago GULAG and modern Central Asia and Afghanistan, that gives the novel its specific poignancy.

In this book Hamid Ismailov masterfully intertwines fiction with documentary and provides wonderfully vivid accounts of historical events such as the siege of Kunduz, the breakout from Shebergan prison and the insurgency in the Ferghana Valley as witnessed by the Byronian figure of Belgi, who enters the inner sanctum of al-Qaeda and ultimately meets Sheikh bin Laden himself.