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.

“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“A wonderfully chaotic novel.”—Modern NovelFinalist for the National Book Awards Translated Literature Prize, 2025, sponsored by The National Book FoundationShortlisted 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