Chingiz Aitmatov. The White Steamship

Chingiz Aitmatov's heroes live in different times and places: on the shores of the Sea of ​​Okhotsk, in a forest cordon near Lake Issyk-Kul, in a Kyrgyz village lost in the mountain gorges... One's childhood coincided with the harsh war years, another lives in the seemingly cloudless post-war years... And who knows when the little Nivkh, Kirisk, set out on his first sea hunt?
Each of these boys will have to face trials far from childish—both the elements and human malice and self-interest—and withstand a test of willpower, self-righteousness, and faith in the beauty of the world. "Childhood is not only a glorious time; childhood is the core of the future human personality," Aitmatov believed, forcing his heroes to pass the most difficult test—the most important of their lives.
Svetozar Ostrov's illustrations deliberately de-emphasize the tragic events. Instead, they resonate with Aitmatov's prose itself, "harsh and tender," imbued with the beauty of nature and folkloric and mythological motifs. Therefore, in the drawings, a herd of horses races through a completely deserted world, the Horned Mother Deer gallops through time and space, and the Fish Woman emerges from the depths of the sea. These are the ones who will help the heroes make the right choice.