Book 137: Turkmenistan (English) – The Tale of Aypi (Ak Welsapar)

Clouds of downy pollen blown by the scorching wind landed on the hills and mixed with the sand, turning the entire area as grey as a wolf pelt. It was hot beyond all endurance, and a bitter, heavy-smelling breeze blew from the sea. People found no relief; first they ran out of their simple homes, then they ran back inside.

Similar to the tale from Tunisia, this is a story about the relentlessness and pitilessness of developers, and how those whose land is being ‘developed’ have to cope after they have been left with nothing (at least where they have lived for generations). And like Lion Mountain in Tunisia, this book (and its author) have been banned in Turkmenistan – Ak Welsapar had to leave in 1993. But it is the first Turkmen novel to have been translated.
Aypi is a young bride in a fishing village on (I assume) the Caspian Sea. For telling some strangers the villagers’ secrets, in exchange for a necklace which fascinated her, her husband pushed her off a cliff into the sea and the necklace dragged her down to her doom. She became the village ghost.
We find out eventually that Aypi’s real name is Ay-peri (’ay’ is ‘moon’ in Turkmen), and in a sense she always was a peri (magical female being in Persian mythology); even as a girl she was always a good swimmer and mischievous. I guess I was expecting her to somehow turn out to be more substantial – more powerful, more moral, less ethereal – but after all she is just a spirit of the dead. She doesn’t do anything practical but is just a gadfly. What she really respects are beauty and wealth. Well – that is what she is.
Three hundred years later, when the whole village is ordered to relocate to the city, and fishing is forbidden, only Araz refuses to leave (despite the authorities inflicting an unusual ice cream torture on him…), thinking everyone else is spineless.
Aypi has begun a campaign of gadfly torture on the men as revenge for them muttering about women’s weakness.
There are two main themes – the battle against (or rather acquiescence to) development, and the war of the sexes. The Tale of Aypi is a surprise – a ghost story and a tale of reincarnation perhaps from a Muslim country (Islam is almost totally unmentioned, but it is set during the time of the Soviet Union), and a feminist tale written by a man (as is Liberia’s Guanya Pau). It was very well written and enjoyable.

WELSAPAR, Ak (1956 – ), The Tale of Aypi, translated by W. M. Coulson, London, Glagoslav, 2016, ISBN 978-1-78437-983-4 (originally published 2012)