The Backstreets

A Novel from Xinjiang

By: Perhat Tursun, Darren Byler - translator

Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi

The Backstreets is an astonishing novel by a preeminent contemporary Uyghur author who was disappeared by the Chinese state. It follows an unnamed Uyghur man who comes to the impenetrable Chinese capital of Xinjiang after finding a temporary job in a government office. Seeking to escape the pain and poverty of the countryside, he finds only cold stares and rejection. He wanders the streets, accompanied by the bitter fog of winter pollution, reciting a monologue of numbers and odors, lust and loathing, memories and madness.

Perhat Tursun's novel is a work of untrammeled literary creativity. His evocative prose recalls a vast array of canonical world writers while drawing deeply on Uyghur literary traditions and Sufi poetics and combining all these disparate influences into a style that is distinctly Perhat Tursun's own. The Backstreets is a stark fable about urban isolation and social violence, dehumanization, and the racialization of ethnicity. Yet its protagonist's vivid recollections of maternal tenderness and first love reveal how memory and imagination offer profound forms of resilience. A translator's introduction situates the novel in the political atmosphere that led to the disappearance of both the author and his work.

©2022 Columbia University Press (P)2023 Tantor

A Haunting Exploration of Alienation

The Backstreets by Perhat Tursun delves into the disorienting and bleak experiences of a young Uyghur man in Urumqi. Written in a stream-of-consciousness style, it explores themes of alienation, identity, and systemic oppression as the protagonist navigates a city filled with hostility and social displacement. The introspective narrative often blurs the line between the protagonist’s internal turmoil and the harsh external reality. Tursun’s experimental style draws comparisons to literary giants like Kafka and Camus, and at times, it even evokes the complexity of Ulysses by James Joyce. The novel reflects both personal and collective struggles of the Uyghurs, offering a profound yet unsettling examination of life under oppression.

I haven’t figured out the value of this novel to me

While it wasn’t cruel or awful, I did not understand why it was a story he felt worth telling. I assume it has to do with Uighers feeling like aliens in their own lands, but I knew that already. If you are looking for further affirmation of this, you could interpret this book this way, but it is more vague than that.