Shortlisted for the 2023 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award
A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of The Year
A Literary Hub Most Anticipated Book of the Year
A rich history of wanderers, exiles and intruders. A haunting personal journey through Central Asia. An intimate reflection on mixed identity shaped by cultural crossings.
In the late 1800s, a group of German-speaking Mennonites fled Russia for Muslim Central Asia, to await Christ-s return.
Over a century later, Sofia Samatar traces their gruelling journey across desert and mountains, and its improbable fruit: a small Christian settlement inside the Khanate of Khiva. Named -The White Mosque- after the Mennonites- whitewashed church, the village-a community of peace, prophecy, music and martyrs-lasted fifty years.
Within this curious tale, Sofia discovers a tapestry of characters connected by the ancient Silk Road: a fifteenth-century astronomer
