Dark Shadows

As Kazakhstan gears up to go to the polls for a  presidential election  following the  resignation  of long-serving strongman Nursultan Nazarbayev, the country is heading into its most interesting and turbulent election in well over a decade. A polling station in Almaty, complete with balloons to create a festive atmosphere. For anyone interested in taking a deep dive into Kazakh political life ahead of the vote on June 9 th ,  Dark Shadows  is a great place to start.  Published  in October by Bloomsbury-owned I.B. Tauris, the book has proven so popular that the first edition has sold out and it’s just gone into a  second print run . Author Joanna Lillis has been covering presidential elections in Kazakhstan since  2005 , through first-hand, on-the-ground reporting that allows the opinions of Kazakhstan’s people about their political leaders shine through.  She traces the trajectory of Nazarbayev first breaking the 90% barrier in that  2005 election  (with 91% of the vote

Since its publication in October, Dark Shadows: Inside the Secret World of Kazakhstan has been snapped up by readers so eagerly that it is nearly sold out – so hurry up if you have yet to get your hands on a copy of the first edition! A second print run from Bloomsbury owned publishing house I.B. Tauris is in the works and will be out very soon. Here you can see a  sneak preview  of the cover of the second edition with an endorsement from a  Spectator review  by  Peter Frankopan , historian and best-selling author of  The Silk Roads  and  The New Silk Roads , who describes Dark Shadows as “astute, refreshing and revelatory”. Dark Shadows has also been given a rave review in the  Times Literary Supplement  recently (subscribers only), and a write-up in  Literary Review , which found that author Joanna Lillis “refreshes our knowledge of important events in Kazakhstan’s history, such as the evaporation of the Aral Sea and the establishment of the Semipalatinsk nuclear test faci