People and Trees: A Trilogy

Set in the mountains of Azerbaijan just after World War II, Akram Aylisli’s ＂People and Trees＂ chronicles the wrenching transformation of traditional Azeri society under Soviet rule.

Private land is collectivized; mosques are converted to silk factories or bulldozed to build ＂palaces of culture.＂ The young narrator, Sadyk, fantasizes about striding hand-in-hand with a beautiful girl into the bright, socialist future he’s seen on the movie screen. The village women, meanwhile, navigate religious, economic, and social upheaval, including famine and the loss of an entire generation of men to war. Drawing on the rich folkloric traditions of the Caucasus mountains, this timeless collection of ＂tales＂ is the work that put Azerbaijan’s greatest living author on the international literary map.

Akram Aylisli is an Azerbaijani novelist, playwright, and editor. His works have been translated into more than twenty languages. Publications in English include ＂Farewell, Aylis,＂ a trilogy of novellas that includes the controversial ＂Stone Dreams.＂ ＂Stone Dreams＂ explores themes of understanding and mutual accountability among Azerbaijanis and Armenians; its publication in 2012 led to public burnings of Aylisli’s books in Azerbaijan. Since 2016, Aylisli has been the target of a politically motivated criminal investigation by the Azerbaijani government that imposes significant restrictions on all his activities; he lives under de facto house arrest in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Katherine E. Young is the author of the poetry collections ＂Woman Drinking Absinthe＂ and ＂Day of the Border Guards＂ (2014 Miller Williams Arkansas Poetry Prize finalist) and the editor of ＂Written in Arlington.＂ She has translated work by Anna Starobinets (memoir), Akram Aylisli (fiction), and numerous Russian-language poets from Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine. Awards include the Granum Foundation Translation Prize, the Pushkin House Translation Residency, an Arlington County (Virginia) Individual Artist Grant, a National Endowment for the Arts translation fellowship, and a Hawthornden fellowship (Scotland). From 2016-2018, she served as the inaugural Poet Laureate for Arlington, Virginia.