Books by Hamid Ismailov

Set mainly in Uzbekistan between 1900 and 1980, The Railway introduces to us the inhabitants of the small town of Gilas on the ancient Silk Route. At the heart of both the town and the novel stands the railway station - a source of income and influence, and a connection to the greater world beyond the town.

A former radio-presenter wrongly interprets one of his dreams and thinks that he has been initiated into the world of spirits as a manaschi, one of the Kyrgyz bards and healers reciting Manas, but instead witnesses the full scale of the epic's wrath on his life.

A Poet and Bin-Laden is a novel set in Central Asia at the turn of the 21st century against a swirling backdrop of Islamic fundamentalism in the Ferghana Valley and beyond.