Sofia Samatar

The White Mosque: A Memoir -- Sofia Samatar, Hardcover

$27.00 $18.99 Sale Sold Out
Shipping calculated at checkout.
A historical tapestry of border-crossing travelers, of students, wanderers, martyrs and invaders, The White Mosque is a memoiristic, prismatic record of a journey through Uzbekistan and of the strange shifts, encounters, and accidents that combine to create an identity

In the late nineteenth century, a group of German-speaking Mennonites traveled from Russia into Central Asia, where their charismatic leader predicted Christ would return.

Over a century later, Sofia Samatar joins a tour following their path, fascinated not by the hardships of their journey, but by its aftermath: the establishment of a small Christian village in the Muslim Khanate of Khiva. Named Ak Metchet, "The White Mosque," after the Mennonites' whitewashed church, the village lasted for fifty years.

In pursuit of this curious history, Samatar discovers a variety of characters whose lives intersect around the ancient Silk Road, from a fifteenth-century astronomer-king, to an intrepid Swiss woman traveler of the 1930s, to the first Uzbek photographer, and explores such topics as Central Asian cinema, Mennonite martyrs, and Samatar's own complex upbringing as the daughter of a Swiss-Mennonite and a Somali-Muslim, raised as a Mennonite of color in America.

A secular pilgrimage to a lost village and a near-forgotten history, The White Mosque traces the porous and ever-expanding borders of identity, asking: How do we enter the stories of others? And how, out of the tissue of life, with its weird incidents, buried archives, and startling connections, does a person construct a self?

Author: Sofia Samatar
Publisher: Catapult
Published: 10/25/2022
Pages: 336
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.35lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.30w x 1.10d
ISBN: 9781646220977

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal Prepub Alert 05/01/2022 pg. 13
Publishers Weekly 05/30/2022
Library Journal 08/01/2022 pg. 106
Kirkus Reviews 09/01/2022

Product Tags:

American - 21st century, Asia, Asian & Asian American, Authors, Biography & Autobiography, Catapult, Central Asia, Christianity, Cultural/ Ethnic & Regional, Hardcover, History, Mennonite, Religion, Sofia Samatar

Find your next favorite

Welcome to Book & Mortar

Explore our extensive collection of contemporary and classic books. From the latest bestsellers to hidden gems, we have something for every book lover. Dive into the world of literature with our curated selection, and let your reading adventure begin.

Contact form

Fill this out if you need to get in touch with me!