Jamila by chingiz aitmatov award

Called "the most beautiful love story in the world" by the French writer Louis Aragon, the short story "Jamila" was the first celebrated foray into the Russian literary world by the Kirghiz author Chingiz Aitmatov.

The story appeared in the literary journal Novyi Mir (New World) in August 1958, when it was still under the stewardship of Aleksandr Tvardovsky, famous for having published Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. This was not Aitmatov's first published work.

Earlier stories had appeared in local Kirghiz periodicals, but "Jamila" was the first sensation in what would prove to be a succession of works from Aitmatov that skirted the limits of the permissible in the regulated world of Soviet literature.

"Jamila" launched the hitherto unknown Central Asian author from literary obscurity onto not only the Soviet but also the world literary scene.

The story begins with the musings of an artist over his favorite pic