The White Mosque, by Sofia Samatar

Samatar's dazzling mosaic of history and identity is a memoir/travelogue unlike anything I've read before. It charts the parallel journeys of 19^th century Mennonites trekking from Russia to rural Uzbekistan and Samatar’s own pilgrimage, a century later, back to their home village of Ak Metchet, interweaving imaginative explorations of race, religion, martyrdom, Central Asian cinema--and much else.