Silk Mirage: Through the Looking Glass in Uzbekistan

Silk Mirage is a compelling portrait of Uzbekistan, a country at the heart of the ancient Silk Road and now the centre of a power struggle between reformers and reactionaries for the soul of this strategic land in Central Asia. In 2016, the long-ruling dictator Islam Karimov – one of the last Soviet-era strongmen – died, sparking a period of transformation under his successor, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, which became known as the ‘Uzbek Spring’. Lillis explores Uzbekistan’s politics, economics, history, arts and culture – and asks where the country stands nearly a decade after the death of its dictator, and 600 years since its ancient capital Samarkand was the centre of the world’s trade network. Conjuring up Uzbekistan as a place full of life and loss, Silk Mirage tells the stories of courageous people who probe to find the cracks in an authoritarian regime through which the light gets in.

Joanna Lillis is a Kazakhstan-based journalist and author writing about Central Asia who has lived and worked in the region since 2001. Her reporting has featured in outlets including The Economist, the Guardian, the Independent, the Eurasianet website and Foreign Policy and POLITICO magazines. Prior to moving to Central Asia, she lived in Russia and worked for BBC Monitoring, the BBC World Service’s global media tracking service. While completing a BA in Modern Languages at the University of Leeds, she studied Russian in the Soviet republics of Belorussia and Ukraine before the collapse of the USSR, and she has an MA in Translation and Interpreting from the University of Bradford. She is also the author of Dark Shadows: Inside the Secret World of Kazakhstan (2019).