1980The Day Lasts More than a Hundred Years
Chingiz Aitmatov
The Sarozek: a sun-scoured stretch of Kazakh steppe strung along the single-track railway that crosses Soviet Central Asia. A veteran signalman keeps a lonely junction here, and when an old friend dies he sets out with the burial party across the emptiness toward an ancient clan cemetery, only to find the ground swallowed by the fenced-off launch ranges of the space cosmodrome. Legend, railway and rocket share the same horizon.
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