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Terre et cendres by Atiq Rahimi
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Terre et cendres (edition 2000)

by Atiq Rahimi, Atiq Rahimi (Auteur)

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2732196,459 (3.94)48
"You know, father, sorrow can turn to water and spill from your eyes, or it can sharpen your tongue into a sword, or it can become a time bomb that, one day, will explode and destroy you"   Earth and Ashes is the spare, powerful story of an Afghan man, Dastaguir, trying desperately to reach his son Murad, who has left his village to earn a living working at a mine. In the meantime the village has been bombed by the Russian army, and Dastaguir, with his newly-deaf grandson Yassin in tow, must reach Murad to tell him of the carnage. The old man is beset on all sides by sorrow, that of his grandson, who cannot understand, that of his son, who does not yet know, and his own, made even crueler by the message he must deliver.   Atiq Rahimi, whose reputation for writing war stories of immense drama and intimacy began with this, his first novel, has managed to condense centuries of Afghan history into a short tale of three very different generations. But he has also created a universal story about fathers and sons, and the terrible strain inflicted on those bonds of family during the unpredictable carnage of war.… (more)
Member:raton-liseur
Title:Terre et cendres
Authors:Atiq Rahimi
Other authors:Atiq Rahimi (Auteur)
Info:P.O.L. (2000), Broché, 92 pages
Collections:Your library, Lu avant BiblioChose (inactive)
Rating:
Tags:001.Roman

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Earth and Ashes by Atiq Rahimi

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» See also 48 mentions

English (13)  Dutch (3)  Norwegian (1)  French (1)  Catalan (1)  Finnish (1)  German (1)  All languages (21)
Showing 1-5 of 13 (next | show all)
[Earth and Ashes] was Rahimi's first novel, and the first film that he directed. It's the story of Dastaguir and his grandson, who have been displaced and are waiting for a ride into the Karkar coal mine region where Dastaguir's son, Murad, works. Dastaguir has bad news to bring to Murad, and over the course of the novella we learn what that news is. This is the third work by Rahimi that I've read, and I've liked them all. Some reviewers have written that his books feel script-like, and I can understand their point. But the tradeoff is that his writing is very cinematic; I can visualize the settings and characters as though I had seen them.

Rahimi was born and raised in Afghanistan, but fled when the Soviets invaded. He was granted political asylum in France and attended the Sorbonne. Taking a break from producing documentaries for French television, in 2000 Rahimi wrote [Earth and Ashes], which was a bestseller in Europe and South America. He subsequently directed a movie version of the book, and it was awarded a prize at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival. ( )
  labfs39 | Jun 16, 2022 |
This Afghani novella of only 81 pages is one of the most poignant, moving pieces I've ever read! Upon finishing it, I closed the book and took a long pause to get my breath back; this simple story of a grandfather, Dastaguir, and his little grandson, Yassin, broke my heart. Written in stark, spare prose with no wasted words, this tragic story encapsulates the whole broken war-torn land of Afghanistan through two peasants.

During the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, a grandfather and grandson, the only survivors from their bombed-out village, make a journey to see the boy's father, who is a coal miner in another location. The little boy has been deafened by the loud noise of bombs. From time to time Dastaguir remembers his family and the day of the bombing. He daydreams about family or himself as a child or naps, having strange dreams as the truck carries him to the mine. We read his interior monologues: what will he say to his son about the attack and his family?

Dastaguir and Yassin are vivid characters, as well as others: a shopkeeper, a guard, a truck driver. The author painted a masterful picture using few uncomplicated words. I could see everything before me on every page. For some reason the author's device of using an omniscient narrator talking to Dastaguir [casting the story in second person] was very effective. References to the Persian epic Shahnama are worked into the plot. [Rostam and Sohrab are as well known in that part of the world as Agamemnon and Orestes are here.] I had never heard of this novella before; now I highly recommend it to everyone! ( )
  janerawoof | Aug 8, 2014 |
This is an extraordinary short story or novella. It is the story of a grandfather and grandson travelling together to find their son/father respectively. It sounds like a simple story, but it is based during the Russian occupation of Afghanistan and blends great tragedy with honest thoughts and feelings of the characters whilst also making reference to the eleventh century, Persian, Book of Kings. It is absolutely transferrable to the present day and could easily be a story of a family in the very recent past!

This book was a recommendation for me based on other books I had read. It was a great recommendation and I will definitely read more from this author. ( )
  Elainedav | Oct 21, 2013 |
In the hyperbole and YA pomp-and-circumstance surrounding the release of Suzanne Collins' third volume in the Hunger Games trilogy, it would be easy to overlook the release of a slight volume of prose, translated from the French, of a story crafted from the mind of an Afghan expatriate and; while understandable, it would also be equally unforgivable. Atiq Rahimi's works are not so much as slight as they are distilled quintessences of stories, carefully crafted scenes of both physical and transcendent landscapes. Rahimi's stories strip out the superfluous in both language and meaning, providing the reader with true abstracts of the time-and-place and the characters. In Earth & Ashes, the story of an older man who must travel with his grandson to the mines where his son (the boy’s father) works, in order to deliver tragic news, the political language that one might expect to inform the whole of the story’s context, the Russians invading Afghanistan, is supplanted by the realty that Dastaguir (the older man) understands: the immediacy of having his village bombed, his having to witness the destruction and survive it and, to try to make sense of what is only tritely explainable. Dastaguir’s world is reduced to a landscape that has been rendered unto rubble, colored by the dust of the road and the soot of the mining camp, a world he must still literally and figuratively negotiate to reach his son, Murad. Along the way, through his dreams, his recollections, through the power of storytelling itself (the story of the guard, the story of the Book of Kings… ) Dastaguir tells us the story of himself, which is not the story of a doddering old man given to distraction as would seem, but the narrative of a man facing the daunting prospect of having to re-write his future history, his future identity, by aggregating his grief:

“You don’t hear the rest of the shopkeeper’s word. Your thoughts pull you inward, to where your own misery lies. Which has your sorrow become? Tears? No, otherwise you’d cry. A sword? No, you haven’t wounded anyone yet. A bomb? You’re still living. You can’t describe your sorrow; it hasn’t taken shape yet. It hasn’t had a chance to show itself. If only it wouldn’t take shape at all. If only it would fall silent, be forgotten… It will be so, of course it will… As soon as you see Murad, your son… Where are you Murad?”

Redacted from the original blog review at dog eared copy, Earth & Ashes and; The Patience Stone. 08/24/2010

1st read: 08/20-23/2010 ( )
  Tanya-dogearedcopy | Apr 4, 2013 |
Almost a short story, a moving story of a grandfather faced with raising a newly deaf grandson. It shows the horror induced by the Russians who have destroyed his village and killed his son, and at the end of a journey to find his son - and it is a journey story - the added indignity of further lies of bosses. So sad. Cleanly written. ( )
  carterchristian1 | Jan 8, 2011 |
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» Add other authors (25 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Atiq Rahimiprimary authorall editionscalculated
Göknar, Erdag M.Translatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Lukavská, AnnaTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Lukavský, ErikTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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Epigraph
He has a great heart,

As great as his sorrow.

—Rafaat Hosseini
Dedication
To my father, and other fathers
who wept during the war
First words
"I'm hungry."
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"You know, father, sorrow can turn to water and spill from your eyes, or it can sharpen your tongue into a sword, or it can become a time bomb that, one day, will explode and destroy you"   Earth and Ashes is the spare, powerful story of an Afghan man, Dastaguir, trying desperately to reach his son Murad, who has left his village to earn a living working at a mine. In the meantime the village has been bombed by the Russian army, and Dastaguir, with his newly-deaf grandson Yassin in tow, must reach Murad to tell him of the carnage. The old man is beset on all sides by sorrow, that of his grandson, who cannot understand, that of his son, who does not yet know, and his own, made even crueler by the message he must deliver.   Atiq Rahimi, whose reputation for writing war stories of immense drama and intimacy began with this, his first novel, has managed to condense centuries of Afghan history into a short tale of three very different generations. But he has also created a universal story about fathers and sons, and the terrible strain inflicted on those bonds of family during the unpredictable carnage of war.

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