The Myth of Childhood in the Early Works of Akram Aylisli

• In Event: A Childhood in the "Orient": Autobiographical Reflections through the Lens of the Soviet Experience

Abstract

This paper compares Akram Aylisli's early trilogy "People and Trees" with Russian and Soviet Literature's various mythologies of childhood. Aylisli has expressed enduring admiration for both Gorky and Bunin, whose autobiographical works are the primary inspirations for Aylisli's tale of orphanhood in an Azerbaijani village during the Second World War. Through comparative analysis, this paper attempts to describe Aylisli's own myth of childhood as well as its place within his particular style of Azerbaijani "village prose."

Author

• Peter Orte, Williams College