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Hamid Ismailov’s novels include The Railway, The Dead Lake, and The Underground. Born in Kyrgyzstan and raised in Uzbekistan, he lives in Hertz in the United Kingdom. More about this author >
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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.
Crossing the poètes 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 a 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 celebration of how poetry resonates across time and space.
French surrealism, Islamic poetry, philosophy, mysticism, and technological futurism meet in We Computers, the story of a reluctant French poet who, accompanied by his computers and his Uzbek translator friend, sets out to code a program capable of composing poetry—and becomes mired in an impossible quest for self-effacement. 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.
Hamid Ismailov & Shelley Fairweather-Vega at the 2025 National Book Awards Finalist Reading
