Central Library Brown Baggers discussed Jamila by Kyrgyz author Chinghiz Aitmatov on February 20th, 2025. Originally published in Russian in 1958, Jamila was suggested and voted on by the group in an attempt to read more widely and more titles in translation.  Since this title was a short one (translated by Fainna Glagoleva) and available to read online, it was a very accessible choice and generally enjoyed by our readers.  We did have one reader who didn’t like this selection at all and a few supremely bothered by reading it on a computer!  Of course, this is part of the reason for discussing books; learning what appeals to some but not others and why.

This was essentially a love story, with our main character Jamila fighting to overcome powerful culture impediments to her future happiness.

Most of our readers appreciated the descriptive language and the setting; learning about the collective farming culture.

There were many foreign words in the text –some of us took the time to look them up while others interpreted meaning from context.

Jamila was made into several film adaptations in 1968, 1995 and 2018. 

Here is the 1968 version, Jamila the video (Dzhamillya in Russian with English subtitles) available online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDk_TOzgAg4

We engaged in some discussion of the Union of Soviet writers and how unbelievably powerful they were in wielding influence over written and dramatic/film works during that time period.