Earth and ashes download

Oct 29, Joanka rated it liked it Shelves: islamic-countries , asia , fiction , men , afghanistan. I have this impression that you can recognise an Afghan writer no matter if she or he writes in English, French or German.

There is something in the structure of the sentences and the overall melody and atmosphere of the book that makes you think of the mountains and the dust of Afghanistan. It shows a man and his grandson, who lost their family and house during an attack of the Rus I have this impression that you can recognise an Afghan writer no matter if she or he writes in English, French or German. It shows a man and his grandson, who lost their family and house during an attack of the Russians.

It also shows why everything that happened in Afghanistan could happen exactly there. I prefer less symbolic and more developed literature, even when we talk about short stories. One of the most haunting works of fiction to address the turmoil going on in Afghanistan. By far the best book I've read this year. Oct 21, Pooja Jha rated it it was amazing Shelves: must-read. A very poignant, gripping and moving novella..

Whenever I read these kinds of novels set in Afghanistan or middle-eastern country or wherever there isn't a strong established democracy or governance I feel privileged to be born in a democratic country.. It doesn't mean there aren't any issue here to deal with but still I don't have to wake up everyday feeling uncertain or threatened about my life, family and friends This was a really tearing novella Oct 25, Sophie rated it really liked it.

The world is silent So then, why are people moving their mouths? It is a two-fold journey, however: as much a physical undertaking as it is a psychological one. A record of hardships faced — sour apples, dust and ash and earth, a little water in a coppe "People have lost their voices; stones have lost their sound.

A record of hardships faced — sour apples, dust and ash and earth, a little water in a copper cup, a young boy trying to make stones sing once again — steadily woven with a stream of consciousness that shows snippets of the trauma they have fled from.

It is sparse and simple, yet lyrical in its telling. Brief characters breathed full of life and sound and vice and habit; the landscape they inhabit every bit as vibrant as their own selves. Powerful in its sparsity, too. No need to decadently describe the horrors of war; you feel them in every sentence, a silent presence occasionally given voice by Dastaguir's spiraling thoughts as he travels by track and truck, tired, full of grief and hurt and ache, dreading his destination and yet bound by duty to reach it.

I could have read another 50 pages; eager to find threads tied-up, sons reunited with their fathers, something soft in all the harsh light and hard stones of the desert But perhaps that lack of clarity only adds to this novella's latent power, ending how it began: an old man patiently waiting, with only an apple-blossom scarf tethering him to the life he walks.

Feb 07, Muneeb Hameed rated it really liked it. It seems like a trend for newer novels is to include superfluous descriptions and extensive character development. Earth and Ashes had none of that. Atiq Rahimi's ability to pull at your heart and fully immerse you into the world of the novel with such few words was truly impressive. My biggest complaint is that I wanted more! Jan 08, Asim Bakhshi rated it really liked it Shelves: english-literature , persian-literature.

A small book with images worth a tome. An extra star for tons of sadness packed in few ounces of words. Nov 04, Phil Halton rated it really liked it. Atiq Rahimi is one of several Afghan writers who has become well known in the West. After the Soviet invasion, he and his family fled first to Pakistan, and then to Paris where he studied at the Sorbonne. Rahimi first began to work as a documentary film maker before becoming a writer as well.

He has since followed that with three more works in his native tongue, some of which have been translated into English and French. Travelling with the father is his grandson, the only other survivor in their extended family, left in his care while his own son went away to work. Much of what Rahimi writes is a metaphor for the state of his country.

Particularly intriguing is his depiction of a young child, Yassin, who has gone deaf after surviving the destruction of his village. Without any knowledge of the concept of deafness, he assumes that everyone around him has lost the capacity to speak. Similarly, the youth of Afghanistan who grew up in chaos and war lack any knowledge of their communities at peace.

It could be argued that many of them externalize the source of the ongoing conflict, not recognizing what they lack themselves. It was made into a film that was screened at Cannes in Jan 15, Hikaoru rated it really liked it Shelves: challenge , fiction.

The curator this week for a local book twitter account listed this as one of her favourite books. As someone unfamiliar with literature outside of Western or South Asian, this is I was going to say that I need to widen my horizon in reading but then I realised that it's not that I'm picky in choosing books.

It's just that I seldom read this kind of book. Meaning I tend to read a lot of MG, YA and fantasy that whenever I read outside of that I feel like I'm being bombarded by culture The curator this week for a local book twitter account listed this as one of her favourite books.

It's so weird that I could easily digest world-building and magic but when presented with real-life way on people handling their grief and I'm a gobsmacked. I am aware that the Arabs or maybe I'm not classifying them properly sometimes beat their chest in grief but it's like something I've read in passing or maybe I didn't think it was actually real.

I dunno. I think lack of exposure on their history, maybe not history because I have studied Islamic history in high school or perhaps its the history before that and also their literature that made me think of them in abstract way. Despite the fact that this book is about grief and tragedy, I've yet to shed a tear. I feel so heartless rn. I was instead constantly on my toes thinking on how will the old man survives, or did Murad somehow dies or is he actually in a dream, or is he actually dead and all of this just him witnessing how everyone fares without him.

This book gives me this warm but unwanted feeling in my heart. I have no idea what this feeling is. Maybe anxiety. Firstly, it is centered around the topic of war. Secondly, it offers the reader glimpses into Afghan Culture.

Thirdly, it is too short of a read which I believe is the reason that I did not enjoy this read a lot. While the theme of loss constantly colored the story, Mourad became the focus of the story. I am also convinced that the historical significance of the war to Afghan History could have been developed in more depth as well.

I liked the metaph "Terre et cendres" has numerous complexities. I liked the metaphors which carried great substance. These allowed me to understand that in this book, Afghanistan is a country od contradictions which came into existence because of conditions of war. Denial is another thorough theme because the characters in this story are unable to grasp the severe contradiction which is that of life and death.

Although there are universal human themes explored in the course of this read, I still would conclude that it required further development in order to truly flourish into an interesting story that draws you in as the reader because I felt that I was looking to the best of my ability for a definining moment but this read proved difficult with regards to that.

All in all, I would say that it is a read where I felt disconnected at times. Mar 16, Ben Rowe rated it it was ok Shelves: round-the-world , round-the-world-africa. The story didnt captivate me and I actually dozed off a few times during the reading of it. The writing as translated was competent but I didnt like that it was written in second person other than a very short story does this ever work?

On a simpler level I just didnt enjoy the prose. Also there were elements that referenced stuff I just didnt know about. I cant blame the author for this really as its about my ignorance but it did mean the story was a bit bland and I was missing the salt of kn The story didnt captivate me and I actually dozed off a few times during the reading of it.

I cant blame the author for this really as its about my ignorance but it did mean the story was a bit bland and I was missing the salt of knowledge that would enrich it.

Jul 06, Gema rated it really liked it. The Soviet invades Afghanistan. By a bridge, a young boy and his grandfather sits, waiting for something. As the pages turn, so does their story unfurls. There, the grandfather plans to break the news to his son : your wife is dead, so is your mother, and your son has lost his hearing. As he waits for the car that would bring him to the mines, grief and doubt settle in. Should The Soviet invades Afghanistan. Should he just bury this awful tragedy and not tell his son what had happened?

It is written in second-person, a challenge in itself. But Rahimi manages to use this perspective to engage the readers in the story and make them feel the grief of the characters. Also—they both use a very compact and poetic prose. Oct 18, M. Ashraf rated it liked it.

A very sad story and even hard to process all of that in just few pages, Wars change everything, they create misery, people's life got destroyed in process and no way to go, Another Afghan Tragedy, it is very well written as most of those, the ending was hard and very realistic, it is a great novella This is my first time with Atiq Rahimi and it won't be the last. Only 67 pages, but one of the most provocative books I have ever read. I had to pause after reading it to get my breath back.

Such a sad tale of sorrow. Deep and consuming sorrow for loss of family, home, country, hope, happiness--all gone. Great destruction of a culture and senseless killing of a simple people, bearing the wounds of war for generations is succinctly captured by Rahimi. A very powerful story about loss, being the carrier of bad news, and misunderstandings.

The main character, Dastaguir, come across as very human and relatable. Nov 03, Jeruen rated it really liked it. This book is a very taut and condensed tome, yet it definitely packs a big punch.

With just around 50 pages, it is more a short story than a novel, and yet there's plenty of layers to it, that one can definitely spend a lot of time to linger in.

See, this is the story of sadness. It essentially takes a snapshot of Afghanisan, during the Russian occupation. At the centrepiece of the story is an old man and his grandson. It turns out that they are survivors of a bomb explosion, and pretty much all This book is a very taut and condensed tome, yet it definitely packs a big punch.

It turns out that they are survivors of a bomb explosion, and pretty much all of the family dies: the old man's daughter-in-law and several other adults.

The old man's son and father of the grandson is working in a mine, and the old man sets out to convey the sad news. The grandson is not left unharmed either: he loses his hearing because of the explosion, which he interprets as people's voices being taken away.

The entire story slowly reveals itself, one calamity after another, page by page, as the reader progresses in the story. The first edition of the novel was published in , and was written by Atiq Rahimi. The book was published in multiple languages including English, consists of 67 pages and is available in Hardcover format.

The main characters of this fiction, novels story are ,. Please note that the tricks or techniques listed in this pdf are either fictional or claimed to work by its creator. We do not guarantee that these techniques will work for you. Some of the techniques listed in Earth and Ashes may require a sound knowledge of Hypnosis, users are advised to either leave those sections or must have a basic understanding of the subject before practicing them.

For everywhere we see in this film, is of burning villages and barren deserts. And yet, amongst the desert, there is often a single shrub of vegetation that manages to eke an existence out of its harsh landscape. And for every burning village, there are people left behind to bury the dead.

Indeed, it is often said, and in this movie too, that the survivors are often worst off than the dead, because they have to shoulder the burden of having to live on; to have their hearts broken again and again, driven mad by the incessant frequency of destruction and deaths and having lost any sense of purpose in life. Even though the old man is lucky enough to have a sole purpose in life--to seek his son--the film is often meandering in his wavering doubt of the good it would do to let his son know about this painful truth, often touching on the aspect of truth and the fact that truth might often do anyone more harm than good.

This strong sense of doubt and uncertainty permeates the film's reality too, punctuating it with surrealistic images amidst the desert. It is a feverish nightmare in which the people in the film are trapped in a purgatory, haunted by the spirits of the dead, and struggling to find a meaning to all this.

In all its hypnotic mirages, only the concept of pain and loss remains the most real, bringing the old man and his grandson back to earth time after time; the fact that they still have each other, but not much else.

At one point of the movie, the young boy, ignorant to the fact that he is deaf, pleads with his grandfather to bring him to somewhere where there is more noise, not knowing that even if he could hear, everything would still be under a shroud of deathly silence.

In all the film's silence and echoes of the dead, it is a poetic elegy of loss and the need for its painful acceptance in life. It is a sorrowful journey of spiritual and mythical proportions, one that all of us have to face somehow, and not withdraw from the truth and our broken hearts. Details Edit.

Release date January 5, France. Afghanistan France. Dari Pashtu. Soil and Ashes. Pol-e-Khomri Region, Afghanistan. Box office Edit. Technical specs Edit. Runtime 1 hour 42 minutes. Related news. Nov 4 ScreenDaily.