Oxus Circle Presents Book Club: Confessions of a Jade Lord by Alat Asem

Confessions of a Jade Lord immerses us in an underworld peopled by gangsters with their penchant for firewater-fueled storytelling and philosophical reverie, appetite for Uyghur delicacies such as lagman hand-pulled noodles and whole roasted lamb, fierce loyalty to family and a willingness to unsheathe their daggers when honor, brotherhood or jade require.

Alat Asem’s fiction is a Uyghur universe where Han Chinese rarely figure. His hallmarks are serial womanizers — real hanzi who piss standing, not squatting — monikers that belittle, and a hybrid lingo with an odd but appealing Central Asian flavor.