The Dead Lake

by Hamid Ismailov

Andrew Bromfield (Translator)

LONG-LISTED FOR THE INDEPENDENT FOREIGN FICTION PRIZE 2015 ------- LONG-LISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD 2016 ------ INDEPENDENT BOOK OF THE YEAR 2014 -------- GUARDIAN READERS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2014 ------- A haunting Russian tale about the environmental legacy of the Cold War. Yerzhan grows up in a remote part of Soviet Kazakhstan where atomic weapons are tested. As a young boy he falls in love with the neighbour's daughter and one evening, to impress her, he dives into a forbidden lake. The radioactive water changes Yerzhan. He will never grow into a man. While the girl he loves becomes a beautiful woman. ------ Why Peirene chose to publish this book: 'Like a Grimm's fairy tale, this story transforms an innermost fear into an outward reality. We witness a prepubescent boy's secret terror of not growing up into a man. We also wander in a beautiful, fierce landscape unlike any other we find in Western literature. And by the end of Yerzhan's tale we are awe-struck by our human resilience in the face of catastrophic, man-made, follies.' Meike Ziervogel, Publisher

• ISBN10: 1908670142
• ISBN13: 9781908670144
• Publish Date: 27 February 2014
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 14 June 2021
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Peirene Press Ltd
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 128
• Language: English

Reviews

[Michael @ Knowledge Lost]

While I actively avoid a novel that is described as a modern fairy-tale, it is a good term to use while talking about The Dead Lake. The novella tells the story of Yerzhan growing up in the remote parts of Kazakhstan, in an area that the Soviets used for atomic weapons testing. As a young boy he tried to impress the neighbour’s daughter by diving into a forbidden lake. The lake was radioactive and diving into the water changed Yerzhan forever.

Diving into the dead lake means that Yerzhan will now never grow into a man, he is doomed to watch his love grow into a beautiful woman while he will forever be a prepubescent boy. The plot is very fairy-tale like and the reader has a front row seat into a struggle in masculinity. While never growing old may seem like a dream for some people, never reaching puberty would not be desirable. While re-reading Interview with the Vampire, I wanted this exact issue explored with Claudia. The idea that while Yerzhan may never physically age, time and experience means he grows and matures. His inner self is not reflected physically and he is doomed to be always treated like a child.

While the plot tells a fairy-tale like story, underneath all this there is something different happening. The Dead Lake is an exploration into the environmental impact of the cold war. Not just exploring the effects the Soviets had on Karakhstan but rather the impact both American and the USSR had on the world to demonstrate their power. I believe this novella was based on Lake Chagan, which the Soviets conducted nuclear tests on in 1965 and is still radioactive today. Around about 100 times more than the permitted level of radionuclides in drinking water.

This grim book deals with some hard hitting topics but credit to Hamid Ismailov for producing a beautiful novella. The writing in The Dead Lake is so lyrical and poetic it just flows off the page. I found myself captivated by the writing and completely sucked into the story. While it is no secret that I am a fan of Soviet and post-Soviet literature, there is something special about this novella. I love the idea of a bildungsroman where the protagonist is physically unable to truly come of age, I would like to read more novels like this.

This review originally appeared on my blog; http://www.knowledgelost.org/book-reviews/genre/literary-fiction/dead-lake-hamid-ismailov/