KAZAKHSTAN / Hamid Ismailov / The Dead Lake

Between 1949 and 1989 in the Semipalatinsk nuclear range a total of 468 nuclear explosions were triggered, of which one hundred twenty-five in the atmosphere and 343 underground. The global explosive power (in an inhabited region) was 2,500 times higher than that of the bomb dropped by the Americans on Hiroshima in 1945. 

In a train that runs across the boundless of the Kazakh steppe, a traveler encounters a salesman who masterfully plays the violin. His name is Yerzhan and, despite being a young adult, he still looks like a child. To pass the time, the passenger begs him to talk about his story. Thus unravels the mysterious tale of the child man, born in the years of the Cold War in a remote village, near a small transit station.Violating the family's recommendations, one day the child dives into Dead Lake, an emerald basin that was formed following a nuclear explosion. And he stops growing.

A very interesting novel also translated into Italian and really quick to read, a masterpiece by the writer also famous for "a poet and bin laden", to read before a trip to Kazakhstan.