Chasing the Sea
2003 • 388 pages
In 1996, Tom Bissell went to Uzbekistan as a naive Peace Corps volunteer. Though he lasted only a few months before illness and personal crisis forced him home, Bissell found himself entranced by this remote land. Five years later he returned to explore the shrinking Aral Sea, destroyed by Soviet irrigation policies. Joining up with an exuberant translator named Rustam, Bissell slips more than once through the clutches of the Uzbek police as he makes his often wild way to the devastated sea.
In Chasing the Sea, Bissell combines the story of his travels with a beguiling chronicle of Uzbekistan’s striking culture and long history of violent subjugation by despots from Jenghiz Khan to Joseph Stalin. Alternately amusing and sobering, this is a gripping portrait of a fascinating place, and the debut of a singularly gifted young writer.
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This one has been on my tbr shelf since 2013, so I finally interlibrary-loaned it for 2 challenges: Cleaning Out the TBR and Read the World. It was very good travel lit for a history buff like me, since he spent a lot of time on the history of Uzbekistan, Central Asia, and the Soviet Union.
