ARGONAUT BOOKS

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 - the longest human epic, consisting nearly of a million verses - who are revered as people who are connected with supernatural forces. Travelling to a mountainous village populated by Tajiks and Kyrgyzs, he instead witnesses the full scale of the epic's wrath on his life.