The Long Way Home

In the fall of 1939, two Uyghur Muslim brothers, the older Abu–short, stocky, and Mongol-featured, and Mahmud­–tall, blue-eyed, and fair, sent by their widowed mother to find work for a season, instead plunge into a six-year, thirty thousand-mile journey around the world, stumbling their way through the major turning points of World War II, inadvertently becoming soldiers in the Chinese Kuomintang, the Japanese Imperial Army, the Soviet Red Army, the Kazakh Cavalry, the German Wehrmacht, and finally, American G.I.s, while spending time in the Soviet Gulag and four prisoner-of-war camps. Part Don Quixote, part Forrest Gump, from Stalingrad to Howlin’ Wolf, the adventure is underscored by the fact that almost no one can speak the Uyghur language, nor can the two brothers understand anything that is said to them. A sweeping romp across the globe through a defining moment in history.

Brent Bourgeois has been an award-winning songwriter, recording artist, music producer, and the vice president of a record company. His first book, Left Behind: Jesus in the Age of the American Empire, was published in 2008 by Apocryphile Press. Brent lives in Elk Grove, California with his wife, Mary Ann, and their four children.