A Government Trying to Rebuild a Reading Habit, One Grant at a Time
I keep thinking about a small detail buried in a government decree from January of this year: Uzbekistan is now requiring workplaces to set up a physical “book corner” and run a monthly “reading hour” for employees. Not schools — workplaces. Offices, factories, ministries. There’s even an internal ranking system tracking who reads the most, with a cash prize equal to a month’s salary for the top reader.
There’s something almost touching about the specificity of it, and also something a little sad. You don’t legislate a “reading hour” into existence unless the habit has genuinely eroded and someone in government noticed and decided it mattered enough to write into law.
Uzbekistan has spent the better part of a decade trying to rebuild its publishing ecosystem and its reading culture more or less from the ground up, and the newest round of measures, formalized this January, gives a pretty clear picture of where the pressure points are.
The most direct intervention is aimed at people who actually write books. Young writers can now apply for competitive grants that cover, for up to a year, a monthly stipend worth fifty times the base calculation unit — enough, in local terms, to let someone write without a second job eating all their hours. On the translation side, the government will cover half the production costs and eighty percent of the copyright costs for translating major foreign literature into Uzbek, and for translating Uzbek literature outward into other languages. That second half matters more than it might look at first glance. A national literature that only gets read domestically stays provincial almost by definition; a translation subsidy is, in a quiet way, an attempt to put Uzbek writers into conversation with the rest of the world’s readers rather than leaving them talking only to each other.
There’s also a slower, more structural piece: every year, at least three professional and technical books from abroad are supposed to get translated into Uzbek by local publishers, annotated with glossaries and explanatory notes by qualified specialists. It’s an unglamorous kind of literary infrastructure — nobody’s writing poems about a translated engineering textbook — but it’s the sort of thing that determines whether a country’s professionals can actually work from up-to-date knowledge in their own language, or whether they’re permanently a few years behind because the good material only exists in English.
None of this happens in a vacuum. It builds on a longer push that started with something more physical: getting book-selling spaces into towns and cities that didn’t have any. Regional governments were told, back in earlier rounds of this policy, to hand over unused state-owned buildings, rent-free, to anyone willing to open a specialized bookstore. Shops that did more than seventy percent of their business in books got a tax exemption. That’s the kind of policy that doesn’t generate headlines but quietly changes whether a teenager in a smaller regional town has anywhere at all to buy a novel.
The most recent presidential address added a number that stuck with me: ten million books a year are meant to be distributed to school libraries, framed explicitly as an effort to get young people in local neighborhoods reading again. There’s also a longer-range plan running through 2030 to digitize library collections entirely, so that physical distance from a major city library stops being the reason someone can’t get access to a book.
I don’t think any of this guarantees a reading renaissance. You can subsidize book prices and still lose to a phone screen; you can build a library and still find it empty. Reading habits are shaped by a hundred things a ministry can’t legislate — what your parents read to you, whether your friends talk about books, whether you’re too exhausted after work to open one. A mandated “reading hour” at the office might produce a genuine habit in some people and pure performance in others, and there’s no easy way from the outside to tell which is happening.
But I find myself less cynical about this than I expected to be, mostly because of where the money is actually going. It’s not vanity publishing for state-approved narratives — it’s stipends for young writers to have time to write, and subsidies specifically for bringing outside literature in and sending local literature out. That’s a bet on literature as exchange rather than literature as propaganda, which is a distinction worth noticing, especially from a government that could have chosen the easier, more self-serving version of a “reading culture” campaign.
Whether it works is a ten-year question, not a one-year one. But it’s rare to see a state put actual line items — fifty times the base unit here, eighty percent of copyright costs there — behind something as soft-sounding as “getting people to read more.” I’ll take that as a more honest starting point than most cultural policy manages.
Amonboyeva Shahnoza, student of Urgench State University, working towards a bachelor’s in computer engineering
I bear tales of hidden facts_heights of pleasure forgone
Depths of peace traded off for crisis.
Whoso prays for war knows not it’s cost.
Whoso delighteth in war is a friend to a waster.
Civilized animals with laws to legalize death.
The ultimate qualm of fights stand tall
THE NO OF SACRIFICIAL LAMBS THAT MUST BE SLAIN.
WHEN IN THERE SILENCE THEY NEVER STARTED THE WAR.
Bio:
Driven and high-achieving 300-level Law student at Federal University Wukari with a strong commitment to child rights advocacy and academic scholarship, Emmanuel Barnabas, a published legal researcher with practical experience collaborating with specialized law firms. Proven student leader with over three consecutive years of experience serving as Class Representative, demonstrating exceptional communication, organizational management, and stakeholder liaison skills. He can be reached in his social handles:
Behind the counter in the church attic teenage hangout after school, weekend nights selling candy, making milkshakes flirting with the longhairs waiting for one to call in your dad’s big easy chair Helter Skelter open in your skinny lap behind another counter ringing up burgers, fries grease clinging to freckles your waist-length braid biker boy punches in black helmet covering his pockmarked face hands racing all over you managers laughing loudly in the manner of old men behind another counter cash register at KFC alone and bored and afraid someone could want more than chicken one summer more freedom to move from hotel room to room strip sheets, scrub toilets tubs of vomit and condoms when a stranger walks in slams the door, presses you against an unmade bed he steals a Kodak camera from the guest’s luggage only college saves you not from men at work but from victimhood sweet naiveté and raw youth.
That’s how it happens
She told you it was bursitis because she didn’t want to say cancer because you were all so young because she couldn’t do much after so you took on her chores because she died young so you kept the family going because you were the responsible one so the guidance counselor at school because he was worried about your friend because he thought you could influence her because she was so wild because you met her neighbors because they were wild too so you went to the cemetery because one had a pint of vodka because he worked pumping gas because he says he peaked that year because she moved away because maybe she peaked then too because she married three times because the first seduced school kids because the second beat on her kids so maybe you all peaked back then because the drinking was easy because the vodka was tasteless because vodka is odorless because that’s how it happens and keeps on happening.
Kitchen Duties
Washing dishes at the sink while your siblings dine on the meals you cooked spraying dishes by the bulk with steaming institutional rinse mornings in the cafeteria too much with a hangover after frat party after party bar crawl after bar crawl promotion to assistant chef tossing salads by the hundreds giant mixers beating batters cornbread, biscuits, pancakes weak coffee by the gallon paying your way through college an internship with a stipend pale green rooms, weekday meals at the crumbling state institution planning menus for the insane on a suspiciously small budget too many fingers in the stew sliced bologna and white bread cling peaches in syrup, blued milk the hue of winter sky out your windows hollow men linger on stone benches women in mismatched shoes wander in a drugout daze the employee dorm unlocked you’d never felt so safe.
CONVERSATIONS WITH THE INFINITE ORIGINAL TEXT BY JERNAIL S. ANAND
(CRITICAL REVIEW BY MAURO MONTACCHIESI)
Introduction:
A book that exists in the present and outside of time.
Not being a collection of articles in the journalistic sense of the term, this text defies any conventional classification.
It is neither an academic essay nor a philosophical treatise.
As stated by the author himself:
it is “just a conversation over evening tea.”
As a matter of fact, a rhetorical strategy is hosted within this modest declaration.
Conversations with the Infinite has a complex and speculative structure.
Its edifice interweaves:
spirituality and technology, ecology and pedagogy.
But also:
metaphysics and cultural anthropology;
social critique and moral philosophy.
The book is a patchwork of reflections.
Yet, its internal framework is surprisingly compact.
Each chapter is a quilt of patchwork that contributes to a larger plan:
that one of the ethical regeneration of humanity.
Anand doesn’t simply diagnose the ills of the present;
he proposes a way out, a cure, a journey of moral reconstruction that involves the individual, society, technology, and the cosmos.
His writing is simple, but never simplistic.
It is communicative, but not banal.
It is accessible, but does not sacrifice depth.
It is, above all, a writing that seeks to touch the reader, trying to
shake him, and restore the awareness of his role in the world.
The book is an eminently ethical work.
It judges the world, it does not describe it.
It questions reality, it does not observe it.
It proposes, it does not merely denounce.
2. The Conceptual Framework: The Crisis of the Post-Truth Era
The subtitle of the trilogy to which this book belongs—The Post-Truth Trilogy—is already a manifesto.
Anand identifies post-truth as an anthropological condition, not just as a media or political.
Contemporary man has lost touch with truth, with reality, with his own interiority, with nature, with time, with community, with the divine.
Post-truth, for Anand, is not an epistemological problem:
it is a moral problem.
It is the consequence of a series of fractures:
the fracture between knowledge and wisdom;
the fracture between technology and humanity;
the fracture between education and moral formation;
The fracture between the individual and society;
The fracture between man and nature;
The fracture between human time and cosmic time;
The fracture between interiority and social representation.
The book is an attempt to heal these fractures, to mend what modernity has torn apart.
3. The diagnosis:
Contemporary man as a “neo-slave”
The first two chapters are dedicated to the transformation of work in the digital age.
A powerful historical parallel is constructed by Anand.
The digital worker who lives “chained to his cell phone day and night.”
From ancient slavery, to feudal servitude, to the condition of the industrial worker, to the new figure of the laptopicarian.
3.1. Digital Slavery as Historical Regression
Anand argues that technology, instead of liberating humanity, has re-chained it.
Workplace flexibility is a fiction:
the digital worker is always available, always monitored, always evaluated, always under pressure.
They no longer have fixed hours, no longer have boundaries between private life and work, no longer have union rights, no longer have security.
Technology, which should have been a means, has become a master.
3.2. The Loss of Dignity
The central point of Anand’s critique is not economic, but anthropological:
the digital worker has lost dignity.
He is a node in a network that monitors and exploits him, a terminal, a cog.
He is no longer a political subject, no longer a worker with rights,
no longer a citizen.
3.3. The Condition of Teachers
Particularly incisive is his denunciation of the condition of teachers, “once the most dignified sector of society,” now reduced to executors of bureaucratic tasks, deprived of time to think, reflect, create, and educate.
Anand hits on a key point:
when teachers lose their dignity, the entire society loses its own.
3. The Second Fall of Man: The Loss of “Human Graces”
A powerful concept is introduced by Anand in the third chapter:
the second fall of man.
The first fall, the biblical one, was the fall toward knowledge.
The second, the contemporary one, is the fall from human grace.
4.1. Emotional Disintegration
Being emotionally disintegrated, modern man lives in a world of material comforts, but is internally restless, confused, and empty.
Technology has reduced the capacity for discernment, even if it has amplified possibilities.
Far from being a solution, one perceives AI as a threat.
4.2. The Ethical Neutrality of Literature
Contemporary literature has abdicated its moral role.
This crucial cultural phenomenon has been denounced by Anand.
Writers no longer want to assume ethical responsibilities, no longer want to point to good and evil, no longer want to take a stand.
They fear being accused of moralism.
But this neutrality is, for Anand, a form of complicity with moral chaos.
4.3. The Proposal:
“Etiquettes”
Anand’s proposal is that its ethical purpose should be explicitly stated by every literary work.
This is not propaganda, but cosmic responsibility:
the writer must contribute to the good of the universe.
5. The Metaphysics of Time:
Kaal and Maha-Kaal
The fourth chapter is one of the most profound and original.
Anand distinguishes between:
Kaal, human, finite, mortal time;
Maha-Kaal, cosmic, eternal, divine time.
5.1. Man as an Uninitiated Being
Man arrives on earth “uninstructed and uninitiated”:
he ignores that his actions have cosmic consequences, that he is being observed, and he ignores as well the reason why he is here.
He lives as if he were eternal, but he is a temporary traveler.
5.2. Cosmic Surveillance
Maha-Kaal, symbolically associated with Shiva, observes every action, every thought, every intention.
He does not judge according to material evidence, but according to spiritual DNA and karma.
5.3. Man’s Cosmic Responsibility
Anand invites the reader to live with awareness of his cosmic role:
every action is recorded, every choice is evaluated, every life is part of a greater plan.
4. Deep Psychology: The “Digestive Tract”
The fifth chapter is a meditation on the structure of human consciousness.
Anand distinguishes three levels:
the formal, social, performative level;
the “underpass,” the interior level that protests against the falsity of the formal level;
the “Digestive Tract,” the place where man judges himself before dying.
6.1. The Division of the Self
Man lives divided:
what he shows does not coincide with what he feels.
This division produces confusion, suffering, and moral ineffectiveness.
6.2. The Last Judgment as Self-Judgment
Anand argues that before dying, man knows perfectly well what he has done, what he has done wrong, what he has betrayed.
He carries with him his own judgment, which anticipates the divine one.
6.3. The Superiority of Nature
Nature does not have this division:
it is unitary, wise, and coherent.
On the other hand, humans are torn by ambition and knowledge.
7. The Educational Revolution:
Against the “Bottling Plant Syndrome”
Chapters 6 and 8 are devoted to a critique of the contemporary education system.
7.1. Time as a Wasted Resource
Anand denounces the absurdity of a system that forces extremely fast students to follow extremely slow paths.
School has remained stuck in the era of camels, while children live in the age of AI.
7.2. The Loss of “Vacant Time”
Free time, empty time, contemplative time has been eliminated. But it is precisely in that time that creativity, philosophy, and wisdom are born.
7.3. The University as a Factory
Universities have become “bottling plants”:
they produce students as products, with labels and prices.
Moral education has disappeared.
5. AI as a Jinn: the most visionary chapter
The seventh chapter is a masterpiece of philosophy of technology. Anand compares AI to the Jinn in Aladdin’s lamp:
immense power in the hands of an immature man.
8.1. Assistance vs. Abdication
AI is useful when it assists;
it is dangerous when it replaces.
Man risks becoming a child cared for by the machine.
8.2. The “Fake Factory”
Anand denounces the production of fake human beings, fake speeches, fake leaders, fake worlds.
Reality becomes an option, not a foundation.
8.3. The Three “Ethical Commands”
Anand proposes three ethical commands for AI:
Ecological:
Heal what humans have wounded.
Social:
Serve workers, not replace them.
Existential:
A world without fossil fuels be invented.
9. Moral Reconstruction:
Against Ethical Inertia
The ninth chapter is a call to youth:
recover truth, sincerity, and kindness.
Anand distinguishes between religiosity (external) and ethics (internal).
Society has confused the two, losing both.
6. Natural Wisdom: “Wisdom Farming”
The tenth chapter is a defense of nature considered as a teacher of wisdom.
Humans have forgotten that wisdom, possessed by mountains, plants, rivers and animals.
11. Criticism of Contemporary Poetry
In chapter 11, Anand denounces narcissistic, self-referential, and messageless poetry.
Poetry should “whisper to the soul,” not recount the fragments of a broken heart.
12. Happiness as a Social Construction
Chapter 12 is a reflection on happiness:
it is not an individual fact, but a relational one.
It does not arise from possession, but from sharing.
13. Macbeth and Poetry as a Cure for Darkness
Chapter 13 imagines a Macbeth who, if he had read poetry, would have avoided evil.
Poetry is an antidote to moral darkness.
14. Time as a Cosmic Laundry
Chapter 14 is a meditation on time:
past, present, and future are rivers that meet.
The present is the laundry where actions are purified.
15. The Returning Truth
Truth as an inexorable force.
It strikes whenever it wants.
Anand clarifies that in chapter 15.
But false narratives can last for generations.
16. The Jungle as a Model of Order
Chapter 16 overturns the concept of “jungle raj”:
the jungle is more orderly, more just, more balanced than the human world.
17. The Cosmic Regeneration of Humanity
A call to arms is evident in the final chapter.
Scientists, writers, and philosophers should gather.
They’d have to work jointly to save humanity from suicide.
18. Conclusion:
A Necessary Book
Conversations with the Infinite is a necessary work.
Not because it offers simple solutions, but because it reminds humanity of its complex, cosmic, and moral nature.
Anand is an author who doesn’t simply describe the world:
he wants to save it, fears it, loves it, and judges it.
The book is an invitation to remember that we are part of a living universe.
A living universe that awaits us, judges us, accompanies us, and observes us.
As well, the text is a call to feel, to think, to slow down.
Without your tiresome chattering body and wherever your soul may be now the fever’s howl won’t reach you nor the clatter of coughing this sudden expulsion of air through the throat recurring again and again over a flickering fire what exactly did Ibn Sina mean by it perhaps between them a brow that never meets the essence and the corpse
It is happening now that you will not cross one leg over the other to read The Prince nor laugh inside the fat waiter’s head as he sterilizes your table of the spray of the invisible Virtue is not possible half animal half human the argument ends and Machiavelli remains the speaker who will not fall silent
It is happening now that in the unseen Socrates has come to know everything and the sophist Protagoras has stopped orating having discovered at last that eloquence is everyone falling silent
It is happening that Schopenhauer still suffers even as he finally sheds his body Nietzsche did not despise his body but it is weak weak weak
It is happening now that you too are alone
And it is happening that Van Gogh is explaining The Yellow House to the dead isn’t color the thing a human surrenders his soul to however painful the body may be
And many things are happening many things in the agonies of waking
Latifa Harbaoui Algeria
When?
Feigned Confluence
Besieging the meaning for a poet’s corpse
The text that formed the hump of the text
The bendings in the midst of a long prayer
Long along the orbit of language
The coveted earth
The abyss
The void
The treacherous days
The lament
The bewilderment
The obscure
The weak, weak human
The lone, solitary moon
And your grave, which you now inhabit
The when?
Prey to the putrid question decomposing in absence
How I wish
You would answer me about the when?
When will you return?
When shall we meet?
And when will we all forgive one another?
The beautiful ones
The beautiful ones
The beautiful ones
At the hour exhausted from the body / from the senses
At the bottom they turn over their new features, they tuck their withered names into the pocket of the earth
Thanks be to God…
Thanks be to God that they cannot see the great flowers
heaped upon their gravestones
The when the caesura is all that remains of the rubble of questions
When was the poet born
When did the poet die
Latifa Harbaoui is an Algerian poet, writer, journalist, and media personality. She graduated in Philosophy from the University of Bouzaréah and continued her studies at the University of Mohamed Khider in Biskra. She is widely recognized as one of Algeria’s distinguished contemporary literary voices, having published extensively in leading Algerian and Arab newspapers and magazines, where she authored influential literary and cultural columns.
Her published works include the poetry collections A Sun Tailored to My Size, Fragments of Anxiety, and Close to the Front with a Kick, winner of the Dar Motoun Prize for Creativity (2023), while her forthcoming collection, Proof, is currently in press. She also published the literary epistolary collection Letters of the Blond Bat, wrote for children’s theatre, and authored the children’s book My Golden Steps in Smart Reading, published under the supervision of the Algerian Ministry of Culture and Arts in 2025. She is also working on her debut novel, Yet He Sees Me.
Harbaoui has served as Algeria’s representative of the Arab Writers League, President of the House of Poetry Biskra Branch, and a member of the Cultural Advisory Council of Biskra Province. She founded the children’s artistic troupe Shadou El Djazaïr in 1995 and produced several literary and radio programs.
Her writings have been the subject of extensive academic research at Algerian universities and translated into English, Turkish, Albanian, and other languages. She has received numerous national, Arab, and international distinctions, including the First of November Medal, two honorary doctorates, recognition among the 100 Most Influential Personalities for three consecutive years, and recent honors from the Governor of Biskra Province and Barcelona Magazine, reflecting her outstanding contribution to contemporary Arabic literature.
