Sofia Samatar returns to Common Threads to continue the discussion on her book, The White Mosque: A Silk Road Memoir.
In The White Mosque, Sofia traces the journey of a group of German-speaking Mennonites who fled Russia in the late 19th century for Muslim Central Asia, to a small Christian settlement inside the Khanate of Khiva. Named "The White Mosque" after the Mennonites’ whitewashed church, the village - a community of peace, prophecy, music and martyrs - lasted fifty years.
Sofia Samatar is the author of the novels A Stranger in Olondria and The Winged Histories; the short story collection Tender; and Monster Portraits, a collaboration with her brother, the artist Del Samatar. Sofia holds a PhD in African languages and literature from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and she currently teaches African literature, Arabic literature in translation and speculative fiction at James Madison University.
