Tajik President Emomali Rahmon appears to be seizing on the audiobook fad now proving such a boon to the publishing industry by requiring national broadcasters to read out his written works on the air, according to EurasiaNet.org.
The head of state-run Tajikistan radio station, Farrukh Ziyoyev, says a team of actors and announcers are currently busy creating audio materials from President Emomali Rahmon’s many writings.
These lengthy programs will, in the words of their creators, help enhance the sense of patriotism in every Tajik. Audiobooks will serve the interests of elderly and blind people thus far deprived the pleasure of reading Rahmon’s oeuvre, they also say.
Readings of two books — the classic Tajiks in the Mirror of History (also available in English) and The Language of a Nation — The Essence of a Nation — have already been recorded and broadcast. The recordings have been placed into Tajikistan’s “Golden Fund” — a sort of notional receptacle of cultural touchstones.
It isn’t just works by Rahmon that will be turned into audiobooks. Books about him are to get the same treatment too.
RFE/RL’s Tajik Service, locally known as Radio Ozodi, has noted that the order to air the audiobooks has been extended to private radio stations, who are obliged to comply in order to avoid losing their operating licenses. These patriotic slots can last anywhere between 30 minutes and 10 hours.
Emomali Rahmon has to date had 20 books written in his name. Tajiks in the Mirror of History is the most famous of these books and is even the subject one-ton monument in Hisor Township, around 15 kilometers west of Dushanbe.
