To know the ethnic groups, read their prose

Aydos Amantay, a young Kazak writer who grew up in Beijing, pulls the reader’s heartstrings with his passionate confession about the loss of his cultural roots.

In his novella titled Loser, a university dropout returns to his hometown in Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region as a temporary volunteer teacher. The students offer him buttered naan bread dipped in milk tea, then they sing folk songs, holding hands in a tight circle.