Novel of famous Kyrgyz author republished
A Chinese version of “The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years,” a novel by Kyrgyz author Chinghiz Aitmatov, has been republished by the East China Normal University Press to mark the 90th anniversary of the author’s birth and the 10th anniversary of his death.
The book, Aitmtov’s first novel, was originally published in the former Soviet Union in 1980 and has been translated into several languages in the world. The first Chinese edition was published in 1982 by Xinhua Publishing House.
The story takes place over the course of one day when the protagonist Burranyi Yedigei, a rail man, attends the funeral of his late friend Kazangap.
During the trek to bury Kazangap, Yedigei recounts his realistic personal history of living, intertwining with some local legends and a story about a fictional US-Soviet Union cosmodrome.
Born to a Kyrgyz father and Tatar mother on December 12, 1928, Aitmatov studied at the Animal Husbandry Division of the Kirghiz Agricultural Institute in Frunze, and later switched to literary studies at the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute in Moscow.
Aitmtov is one of the best known figures in Kyrgyzstan's literature and wrote many world influential works, including “The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years” and “The White Steamboat.”
He suffered kidney failure and died of pneumonia on June 10, 2008, at a hospital in Nuremberg, Germany.
The republished Chinese version of “The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years.”
Chinghiz Aitmatov
