Mother Earth must stand as one of the world’s most poignant stories of the tragedy of war; it is once a passionate plea for world peace – another of Aitmatov’s consistent themes. In Mother Earth, the heroine Tolgonai tells the story of her life, encompassing the tempestuous Soviet period of change as it affected a Kirghiz village from the 1920th to just after the Second World War. In some ways the tale is allegorical: wife and mother, Mother Courage, telling her story to Mother Earth. From time to time the monologue becomes a short dialogue, with Earth responding. In Mother Earth, of course, we have the earth herself, the very stuff of memory and wisdom, the only remaining tangible bond with human lives that have made unwritten story. James Riordan