I am a Chechen!

Editorial Reviews. Review. "This unique mixture of lyricism, legend, memoir and fiction captures I am a Chechen! by [Sadulaev, German]. I am a Chechen!.
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I Am a Chechen! Haunted by memories of the land he deserted, Sadulaev tells the stories of those who stayed behind. He brings to life his friends—now reduced to pieces of flesh—revisiting their first l I Am a Chechen! He brings to life his friends—now reduced to pieces of flesh—revisiting their first loves, their passion for rock music, their quests for martyrdom. Paperback , pages. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

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To ask other readers questions about I Am a Chechen! Lists with This Book. This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Nov 22, Mark Staniforth rated it it was amazing. Unforgettable - brutal war and beautiful peace swirled up in a jumble of fragments which almost border on the hallucinatory: It adds up, somehow, to one of the most vivid testimonies to the futility of war I've read in a long time.


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  7. I Am a Chechen! by German Sadulaev, translated by Anna Gunin – review.

Feb 16, E. In "I am a Chechen! Fragmentary, lyrical, in turns desperate and magical, and often non-linear, this collection follows in the tradition of Russian writers such as Lermontov and Babel, taking bare biography and mixing it with fiction, folk tales, and poetry in order to create, not a historical account of the wars that have torn Chechnya apart, but an impression of wha In "I am a Chechen!

Fragmentary, lyrical, in turns desperate and magical, and often non-linear, this collection follows in the tradition of Russian writers such as Lermontov and Babel, taking bare biography and mixing it with fiction, folk tales, and poetry in order to create, not a historical account of the wars that have torn Chechnya apart, but an impression of what it is like to live through such conflicts.

Petersburg and has become one of the more prominent--and controversial--voices in contemporary Russian fiction, as well as representing the Communist Party in elections. This complexity of biography is reflected in Sadulaev's complexity of composition: Just as Babel's narrators in "Red Cavalry Tales" and "Odessa Tales" are torn between their Jewish and their Russian identities, so are Sadulaev's narrators torn between their Chechen and Russian selves, something illustrated most graphically in in the section entitled "When the Tanks Awoke," about two friends, each half-Russian, half-Chechen, who end up on opposite sides of the conflict.

Only one survives the confrontation, but nonetheless "even now there are two of us, my friend and I. My brother and I. This internal ethnic conflict appears not only in the stories' narrators' explicit struggle to accept the fact that they are both Chechen and Russian, but in the concern about ethnicity and appearance that appears over and over again. Chechens, Sadulaev tells us, are largely "person of non-Caucasian ethnic origins," meaning that they are not necessarily the swarthy "chernozhopiye" "black-asses" the police in Moscow and St.


  • I Am a Chechen! by German Sadulaev, translated by Anna Gunin – review | Books | The Guardian.
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  • Petersburg are on the lookout for, but fair-skinned and -haired Aryans. We ourselves have become women like them. It is the Chechen women and, we know, not just the women who are the victims of the Russian army's planned and unplanned use of rape as a weapon in their war against the Chechen populace. Nothing about Chechnya can be. Sadulaev himself compares his stories to snuff films, and accuses the reader of reading them for the same reason.

    But this collection of stories, for all the brutality of its subject matter, is ultimately neither titillating nor, surprisingly, even depressing. While I still consider Arkady Babchenko's "One Soldier's War" the definitive and essential work on the experience of the Chechen conflicts, Babchenko's book is inherently Russo-centric.

    Sadulaev's work is a necessary corrective to that Russo-centric view, and beyond that, it is full of a literary power and lyrical beauty that deserves to be read in its own right. And unlike Babchenko's pessimistic conclusion to his work, which focuses on the scars of PTSD carried by the Russian soldiers after the war has technically ended, Sadulaev ends on a call to positive action: And then the doors will open. The doors of heaven.

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    Sep 22, J. The book is full of lyrical passages and allusions, it also touches the nonsense of the war which makes disappear whole nations, cities, villages. Blind bullets kill the innocent, and as we learn great people, such as mad village teacher who gave birth to a stillborn child, or Ibrashek, the village fool. I think the author could develop totally independent short stories on these protagonists. What's more, the story breaks the stereotype of an image of Chechens. Most people imagine them dark haired, bearded with sullen complexion and always dressed in sportswear. Which is not always true.

    I was teaching a group of refugee students from Chechenia who were blond, blue-eyed without any specific preference to tracksuits. Nov 03, Sukumar Honkote rated it it was amazing. One of the foremost things that a reader should expect from this book is the interesting writing style. The book appears to be like a sequence of thoughts and not as sequence of events.

    While all the writing is in similar style, the incidents and thoughts are not all that of the author. The book keeps hopping between incidents of various Chechens trying t One of the foremost things that a reader should expect from this book is the interesting writing style. The book keeps hopping between incidents of various Chechens trying to show how the life there has changed due to the war and authors personal thoughts.

    Russian War Song Hello Mom, I'm writing You a Letter Chechen War

    There are no statistics, no laundry list of destruction, no stories of bravado of the natives. I can feel them. He wants to get certain things said and off his chest, but as this is a work of fiction, I wonder if it's the right platform. It's not an easy read and I put this down to Sadulaev's style. Perhaps he could have been a little more reader-friendly. Chechens are the underdogs is the message here. Regardless of what they choose to do. I could almost taste the bile in Sadulaev's throat.

    To keep his readers abreast of all things Chechen, the author provides an explanatory 'Notes' section at the end of the book. The accummulation of violence, war, lost or dis-placed identity are strong subjects to writre about - whatever the nationality. It's enough sometimes to turn someone mad. And on cue, Sadulaev says Let me tell you about the madmen. I found this a desperately sad book to read but also thought-provoking.

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    A visceral voice, writing for those who can't

    Categories Fiction Non-fiction Children's books Authors. This book is about a passionate and proud Chechen the author even although the genre is fiction. The ravages of a war-torn people are writ large in this poignant book.