Sultan Raev’s novel “Zhanzhaza” published in USA in English

The novel «Zhanzhaza» by Kyrgyz writer Sultan Raev has been released in New York in English under the title «Castigation». The book was published by the American publishing house Syracuse, with the translation done by renowned translator Shelley Fairweather-Vega.

Sultan Raev’s work was included in the list of the 20 best books to be published by the publishing house in 2025, receiving high praise from American literary scholars.

Kagan Arik, professor at the University of Chicago, noted that the novel «has become a discovery not only for Central Asian literature, but for world literature as a whole.» According to him, through the book, readers are introduced to «a new world.»

Previously, «Zhanzhaza» had been published in several languages. The American readership is encountering a Kyrgyz novel for the first time in 42 years since the publication of Chingiz Aitmatov’s «The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years» in the U.S. in 1983.

The release of Sultan Raev’s novel in New York is hailed as a new milestone in the development of Kyrgyz literature as part of global culture.