Epress.am News from Armenia
Azerbaijani writer Alekper Aliyev’s new novel “Sari Gelin” is about current Azerbaijani society, about each of us, about our questions and answers, writes Elmir Mirzoyev in Kultura.az.
Recall, Aliyev is the author of controversial novel Artush and Zaur, which tells the love story of two boys, one Armenian, the other, Azeri, who were born and raised in Baku and become sexually attracted to each other before the Nagorno Karabakh War separates them.
“I defend homosexual romanticism over war romanticism. It is acceptable when two men kill each other, but is it a sin when they sleep together?” was famously quoted as telling the Hürriyet Daily News when the book was first published.
According to Mirzoyev, Aliyev’s new book also addresses inter-ethnic issues: the “hatred of hating Urartu,” people’s strive to return to their “roots,” nationalist rhetoric, and other issues of concern to “the oligopoly, television and the public.”
The representation of history, songs, food, and epos are the book’s constant companions, while the countries of the region are called by their old historic names — Atropatene, Urartu, Iberia, Ottoman (Osmanli) and Imperial Russia.
In this context, the book’s title was chosen purposefully: Sari Gelin, a popular folk song that not only Armenians, but also Azeris, Turks and Persians consider their own.