The Life of a Non-Ivan

Abdulmajid grew up in a Dagestani village where no one had an exact address—in residents’ passports it simply said “village N.” One summer, a blond girl named Asya arrived there, and over the next few weeks the boy and girl’s pranks kept the whole area from peace. Asya couldn’t pronounce her new friend’s name properly and asked what his name was “in Russian.” That’s how Abdulmajid became Ivan.
Once, the children’s mischief got out of control: Abdulmajid and Asya led the mute son of a mason named Musa into the mountains, and the boy got lost there. Everything turned out fine, but in a surprising way the event shaped Abdulmajid’s self-perception: guilt and a thirst for redemption revealed something new within him.
Time passed. Abdulmajid left his native village, enrolled in a Moscow university, and there he first encountered what it means to be different from everyone else. “Ivan,” he kept introducing himself, at the same time wanting to blend in with the people around him and burning with shame for betraying himself. Abdulmajid became a writer; his debut-book stories populated it with characters—people he once encountered at home, in the Caucasus. They reflect in him, and he in them; other voices helped Abdulmajid find his own.
“Life of a Non-Ivan” is a story about searching for identity and calling—what it’s like to be an outsider, lonely in a big city, and the power of roots.