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Book presentation:
"Mystical Forest: Collected Poems and Short Stories of Dungan Ethnographer Ali Dzhon"
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Wednesday, September 25, 2024,
12:00–1:00 p.m. (EST)
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Born in Shor-Tyube, Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, USSR, in 1951, Dungan ethnographer and creative writer Ali Dzhon is widely regarded as the pre-eminent writer on the material and spiritual culture and history of the Dungan people, the Sinophone Muslims of Central Asia. Mystical Forest makes available for the first time in English a significant collection of Dzhon’s poems and short stories, which he penned in Russian over a span of more than half a century, from 1969 to 2021, bridging the Soviet and post-Soviet periods. In these rich literary works, Dzhon expresses his thoughts about the world around him, ponders the fate of his people and the meaning of life, and provides finely nuanced descriptions of his feelings about love, nature, and those around him. | |
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Kenneth J. Yin teaches modern languages, literatures, and linguistics at the City University of New York. His scholarly work focuses on the Dungan literature and culture of Central Asia. Another area of interest for him is Siberian Tungus literatures and cultures, primarily those of the Udege and Nanai peoples. A graduate of Cornell University and Georgetown University, he has received fellowships and awards from the American Council of Learned Societies, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University. His book publications include Dungan Folktales and Legends (Peter Lang, 2021) [https://doi.org/10.3726/b18299] and Mystical Forest: Collected Poems and Short Stories of Dungan Ethnographer Ali Dzhon (Peter Lang, 2023) [https://doi.org/10.3726/b18961].
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 |  | Prof. Mark Bender specializes in traditional performance and performance-connected literature of China, including local Han and ethnic minority cultures. Bender has published on numerous subjects, including Suzhou professional storytelling (pingtan) and the oral and written literature of several Chinese minority cultures. His books include Plum and Bamboo: China's Suzhou Chantefable Tradition (University of Illinois Press, 2003), Butterfly Mother: Miao (Hmong) Creation Epics from Guizhou Province, China (Hackett Publishing, 2006), Tiger Traces: Selected Nuosu and Chinese Poetry of Aku Wuwu (OSU Foreign Languages Publishers, 2006), and The Columbia Anthology of Chinese Folk and Popular Literature, edited with Victor Mair (2011). His recent books are The Borderlands of Asia: Culture, Place, Poetry, which features poems by 49 poets in Northeast India, Myanmar, Southwest China, Inner Mongolia, and Mongolia (Cambria Press, 2017 and 2022), and The Nuosu Book of Origins: A Creation Epic from Southwest China (University of Washington Press, 2019), with Aku Wuwu and Jjivo Zopqu.
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Aitolkyn Kourmanova is a multimedia and creative editor of multilingual platforms. She has produced and directed analytical content on Eurasia and Central Asia in Russian, English, and Uzbek languages. She has a solid background in academic publishing, digital media creation, cultural and educational exchange programs, having worked with various international entities and the NGO sector. Her areas of expertise include strategic recommendations for political economy as well as business and country risk assessments on Central Asia.
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This event is on the record and open to the media. | | | | |
