In evocative prose, Samatar captures the Odyssean sojourn and awakens the stories of the past-painting in harrowing detail the unspeakable horrors that befell the first settlers-while reckoning with her own identity, an “electrical storm” created by two religions perceived “as violently opposed. What Samatar discovered within the walled garden of Ak Metchet was the story of a small but strong Christian community whose culture, traditions, and stories outlived their 50 years residing in the predominantly Muslim area. Over two weeks, Samatar, with a group of other Mennonites, traversed great distances and histories before arriving at their destination, Ak Metchet, a Mennonite church built to resemble a white mosque. led his followers from Russia into Central Asia, predicting that Christ would soon return.
In the summer of 2016, the author-a descendant of Swiss-German Mennonites and Somali Muslims-traveled to Khiva, Uzbekistan, in a reconstruction of an 1880s pilgrimage wherein Mennonite minister Claas Epp Jr. Sci-fi writer Samatar ( The Winged Histories) strays from her imagined worlds to excavate a very real past in this fascinating look at her religious heritage.
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