{"product_id":"the-white-mosque-by-sofia-samatar-9781787388079","title":"The White Mosque","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the late nineteenth century, a group of German-speaking Mennonites travelled 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eNamed Ak Metchet, \u003cem\u003eThe White Mosque\u003c\/em\u003e, 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 traveller of the 1930s, to the first Uzbek photographer.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eShe explores Central Asian cinema, Christian martyrs, and her own complex upbringing as the daughter of a Swiss Mennonite and a Somali Muslim, raised as a Mennonite of colour in America. On Samatar's secular pilgrimage to both a lost village and a near-forgotten history, she traces the porous, ever-expanding borders of identity.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eHow 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?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47487686050028,"sku":"9781787388079","price":44.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/e9b666a8f5759a2785be9c1bb732ad03.jpg?v=1775770510","url":"https:\/\/bookhero.co.nz\/products\/the-white-mosque-by-sofia-samatar-9781787388079","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}