One of the few truly talented writers to have emerged from the government's drive to transform the non-Russian nationalities in Russia into parts of the total Communist state, he is also one of the tiny handful that has managed to retain a good deal of originality and artistic integrity.While most of the writers of the newly "modernized" nationalities produce crude versions of the dreary "Socialist Realist" fiction required by the Soviet rulers—fiction that is little more than propaganda of the current Communist line Aitmatov writes stories and novels about living people as he sees and feels them. He does not compose eulogies to the glorious "new Soviet man" created by the Party and the Communist society, nor does he confine his vision to what he is officially, expected to see.Aitmatov is profoundly rooted in his people's past, as well as their present. And he writes of what he knows with a simplicity and tenderness that bring his prose close to the poetry of the ancient tales and epics of his people.
