Aitmatov was one of the few "officially recognized" Soviet authors who was well loved and widely read both by general readers and by discerning critics. Among the so-called "national" authors from Soviet republics, he was by far the most popular. Aitmatov wrote in his native Kyrgyz and in his equally native Russian and often translated his own works from one into the other.
The staple theme of Soviet literature from non-Russian republics was the depiction of the horrors of pre-Soviet life and the confident stride of progress towards industrialized and urbanized modernity. Surprisingly for a Communist party member and a darling of the publishers, Aitmatov wrote nothing of the sort.
Aitmatov's writing was a blend of magical realism with an uncompromising look at Soviet life, where age-old traditions of oppression, male domination and ignorance continued to prosper under a thin film of the new order. This picture was especially striking in Aitmatov's short story "The First Teacher," where the relatively happy ending was an unconvincing nod to the censors.
Aitmatov's first full-scale novel, "The Day Lasts More Than A Hundred Years," which quotes Boris Pasternak for the title, was released in 1980. The novel is essentially a family saga set in the Kyrgyz steppes, with a subplot following joint Soviet-U.S. efforts to stop any contacts with a peaceful and benevolent extraterrestrial civilization. It also features a description of mankurts, slaves who were physically mutilated in order not to remember their past or think for themselves. As a schoolboy at that time, I remember grown-up talk about Soviet censors who either deliberately let this anti-Soviet work slip, or were too stupid to understand the rather evident implications.
Aitmatov's next novel, "The Scaffold," was among those Perestroika-era books that everyone talked about. For the first time since Mikhail Bulgakov's "Master and Margarita," issues of religion and the life of Christ became the central subject of a mainstream Soviet book. From today's perspective, the novel is schematic, but back then it was a revelation for many readers.
Aitmatov's later years were mostly spent in the Benelux countries as Soviet diplomatic representative and, later, as ambassador of Kyrgyzstan. Some of his literary output might seem dated now, but his earlier short stories and novellas have not lost their charm.
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