Customer Reviews

Tradition and Society in Turkmenistan: Gender, Oral Culture and Song (Central Asia Research Forum)

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I have to admit that I was skeptical when I looked at a preview copy of this book. I doubted that it could be both academically rigorous and genuinely entertaining. I'm glad to say I was proved wrong. It is definitely both. Written in clear and lucid prose, and using the author's (an English woman's) own experiences as a way into the fascinating Turkmen culture, this book is always extremely readable. As the first English-language book on Turkmen folk songs, it is inherently a valuable academic treatise. Fortunately, its academic worth far transcends its unique status. Carefully footnoted and written with great sensitivity--at no point are we allowed to forget that the stories being told belong to the women who tell them--this book represents a great contribution not just to folklore from this region but to the study of folklore in general. I was surprised to read that Ms. Blackwell's background was in theater (and not anthropology), though this no doubt accounts in part for the way she was able to put her interviewees at their ease. A great book.