We Computers
A Ghazal Novel
Published on 19. August 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
296 pages
978-0-300-27274-1 (ISBN)
Description
A multilayered exploration of poetry, authorship, and digital intelligence by "a writer of immense poetic power" (The Guardian)
Finalist, 2025 National Book Award, Translated Literature * A World Literature Today Notable Translation of 2025
"Many paths cross in Ismailov's beautiful new work-poetry, history and the infinite imagination. Every path winding into another. Every path worth taking."-Patti Smith
In the late 1980s, French poet and psychologist Jon-Perse finds himself in possession of one of the most promising inventions of the century: a computer. Enchanted by snippets of Persian poetry he learns from his Uzbek translation partner, Abdulhamid Ismail, Jon-Perse builds a computer program capable of both analyzing and generating literature. But beyond the text on his screen there are entire worlds-of history, philosophy, and maybe even of love-in the stories and people he and AI conjure.
Hamid Ismailov brings together his work as a poet, translator, and student of literature of both East and West to craft a postmodern ode to poetry across centuries and continents. Crossing the poetes maudits with beloved Sufi classics, blending absurdist dreams with the life of the famed Persian poet Hafez, moving from careful mathematical calculations to lyrical narratives, Ismailov invents an ingenious transnational poetics of love and longing for the digital age. Situated at the crossroads of a multilingual world and mediated by the unreliable sensibilities of digital intelligence, this book is a dazzling celebration of how poetry resonates across time and space.
Finalist, 2025 National Book Award, Translated Literature * A World Literature Today Notable Translation of 2025
"Many paths cross in Ismailov's beautiful new work-poetry, history and the infinite imagination. Every path winding into another. Every path worth taking."-Patti Smith
In the late 1980s, French poet and psychologist Jon-Perse finds himself in possession of one of the most promising inventions of the century: a computer. Enchanted by snippets of Persian poetry he learns from his Uzbek translation partner, Abdulhamid Ismail, Jon-Perse builds a computer program capable of both analyzing and generating literature. But beyond the text on his screen there are entire worlds-of history, philosophy, and maybe even of love-in the stories and people he and AI conjure.
Hamid Ismailov brings together his work as a poet, translator, and student of literature of both East and West to craft a postmodern ode to poetry across centuries and continents. Crossing the poetes maudits with beloved Sufi classics, blending absurdist dreams with the life of the famed Persian poet Hafez, moving from careful mathematical calculations to lyrical narratives, Ismailov invents an ingenious transnational poetics of love and longing for the digital age. Situated at the crossroads of a multilingual world and mediated by the unreliable sensibilities of digital intelligence, this book is a dazzling celebration of how poetry resonates across time and space.
Reviews / Votes
"A genre-blending, time-bending, poetic novel. . . . We Computers is [Ismailov's] most expansive and imaginative creation yet."-Matthew Janney, Financial Times"A dizzying postmodernist confection translated with tireless ingenuity by Shelley Fairweather-Vega. . . . A thronged, esoteric, besottedly allusive novel, one of the most niche things I have ever reviewed. But niche pleasures, for those who partake in them, are often the keenest."-Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal
"Hamid Ismailov's wildly experimental novel . . . creates an alternate history in which a 1980s computer intelligently generates a new kind of mind-expanding, transnational literature."-Boris Kachka, The Atlantic
"We Computers is a novel that fully embraces ambiguity."-Anu Khosla, The Rumpus
"An exuberant homage to all forms of translation and reinvention."-Thuy ?inh, NPR, "Books We Love," 2025
One of World Literature Today's 75 Notable Translations of 2025
"Centuries of poetic tradition and the possibilities of artificial intelligence animate this dizzying and gorgeous novel. . . . A rich and sensual tableau that makes an implicit argument for the value of human thought. Readers will go all in for this ambitious, genre-defying work."-Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Timely, interesting, poetic-and quite good fun, too."-M. A. Orthofer, Complete Review
"Tremendously funny and charming (I read it in one sitting) and one of the most original, sideways explorations of how AI will affect literary authorship and innovation."-Celine Nguyen, personal canon
"A wonderfully chaotic novel."-Modern Novel
Finalist for the National Book Awards Translated Literature Prize, 2025, sponsored by The National Book Foundation
Shortlisted for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development Literature Prize, 2026
"A feat of translation from Shelley Fairweather-Vega, Hamid Ismailov's novel is a timely meditation on the limits of language, art, and what's human in human creativity."-Judges' citation, National Book Awards
"Many paths cross in Ismailov's beautiful new work-poetry, history and the infinite imagination. Every path winding into another. Every path worth taking."-Patti Smith
"Ismailov's best novel yet, We Computers braids together exquisite classical and modern poetry, disorienting autofiction, and Oulipian metaliterary trickery, without ever losing its sense of fun. Fairweather-Vega's translation handles the multilingual quotations and protean range of pastiche with remarkable deftness."-Samuel Hodgkin, Yale University
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 192 mm
Width: 128 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
293 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-300-27274-1 (9780300272741)
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Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Hamid Ismailov, born in Kyrgyzstan and raised in Uzbekistan, is considered Central Asia's foremost living author. His novels include The Railway, The Dead Lake, and The Underground. He lives in Herts, UK. Shelley Fairweather-Vega is a translator who specializes in prose and poetry from Central Asia. She lives in Seattle, WA.