This is Not Civilization: A Novel by Kyrgyzstan RPCV Robert Rosenberg



This is Not Civilization: A Novel by Kyrgyzstan RPCV Robert Rosenberg

This is Not Civilization: A Novel by: Robert Rosenberg

Description:

Rosenberg’s ambitious and addictive first novel brings to life a culturally diverse group of well-meaning characters whose ambitions exceed their grasp. Anarbek Tashtanaliev runs a Soviet cheese factory that produces no cheese, and his favorite daughter has been stolen in an ancient courting ritual. But the United States sends to his Kyrgyz village what he hopes will be the solution to all his problems: an American Peace Corps volunteer. Jeff Hartig has just left an Apache reservation where he failed to keep a teen center up and running. Saddened but still hopeful that he can effect positive change, Jeff arrives in Central Asia ill prepared for Anarbek’s fervent ambitions and the aggressively hospitable local culture. He finds himself teaching English to milkmaids and entangled in Anarbek’s corrupt business schemes, again left to wonder what difference he can make to a culture struggling to survive. A few years later Anarbek, his daughter, Jeff, and Adam, an Apache from the reservation where Jeff worked, converge in Istanbul, and their fortunes become interwoven. The four share an apartment in the magical, sprawling city. Each on the run from the past, together they form a patchwork expatriate family, unaware that they will soon face one of the most disastrous earthquakes in history. Exotic, romantic, and deeply moving, this novel brilliantly explores America’s relationship to indigenous peoples, the need to find morality amid corruption, and the connection between people and their homeland. It is also a touching love story about those caught between age-old tradition and the dangerous allure of the contemporary world.