"Set partly in contemporary England and partly in in Soviet-era Central Asia, this novel follows the lives of Domrul, a young Meskhetian Turk with vague and painful memories of ethnic strife and political problems in the Uzbekistan of his childhood; Emer, his Irish girlfriend, the victim of a whole different set of ethnic conflicts; and an 80-year-old Russian-Uzbek client, Gaia, with a mysterious past"--

Hamid Ismailov is an Uzbek novelist and poet who lives in exile in London. He is a journalist and project manager with the BBC World Service. A prolific writer of poetry and prose, Ismailov has been published in Uzbek, Russian, French, German, Turkish, English, and other languages. He is the author of many novels, including The Railway and The Underground.

Shelley Fairweather-Vega is a freelance translator in Seattle, Washington. She translates novels, poetry, and short stories for children and adults.