For Azerbaijan, I read The Orphan Sky by Ella Leya. Ella Leya is a musician who was born in Azerbaijan and grew up Muslim in the U.S.S.R. She and her young son Sergey received asylum in the United States in 1990. NPR has a nice piece about her here.

The Orphan Sky is a novel about a girl named Leila who is a classical pianist and devoted to being a good Communist. The story begins in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, and Leya’s descriptions bring the city to life. The reader also travels to war-torn Afghanistan, remote parts of the Soviet Union, London, and California.

In my Read Around the World quest, Azerbaijan follows Austria, so I read The Orphan Sky immediately after finishing The Pianist. Both books are steeped in music, but they could not be more different. The Pianist is dark and punishing, and the protagonist’s relationship with music borders on sadistic. While reading it, I’d look up from the pages, look at our piano, and shudder. In The Orphan Sky, however, the author’s descriptions of music are ecstatic and uplifting and inspired me to sit down at our piano and play a few songs. (I’m not very good.) (But playing the piano is still cathartic and lovely.)

The story dived into a myriad of complicated issues arising from being an artist during the Cold War in a country torn between religion and communism. I felt the protagonist’s grief and despair, her hope and longing, her confusion and the eventual clarity that came from questioning the world she was born into. It was a transportive and transformative novel.

This is the author’s only novel. I know she’s a musician, but damn, I hope she is someday called to write at least one more book.