Solar Plexus

Solar Plexus is a passionate family saga in four parts, set against the backdrop of Azerbaijan's rapidly-changing capital, Baku, as the country struggles with the transition into a post-Soviet world. Spanning three generations and stretching from the 1940s to the 1990s, Solar Plexus tells the tale of a group of friends who grew up around the same courtyard in Baku. Each section is told from a different perspective, embedded into the canvas of the shifting turmoil of those decades: from the Great Patriotic War and Stalin's Purges, to the international institutes and Russification of the early '50s and '60s, through to the struggle for independence and violence of the early '90s. Mixing heart-wrenching romance, surreal humour, complex moral dilemmas and philosophical reflection, Solar Plexus is a rich and multi-layered book that tackles big themes within the most engaging of narratives.Rustam Ibragimbekov was born in Baku, Azerbaijan in 1939. He is an internationally renowned and multi-award winning screenwriter, dramatist and producer. Ibragimbekov holds State awards for contributions to the arts from both Azerbaijan and Russia. His writing credits include more than 40 film and television scripts, plays and prose. Close to Eden (1993) won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, a European Film Award for Best Film of the Year and was nominated for an Academy Award. In 1994 Burnt by the Sun was awarded the Grand Prix at Cannes and an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film; in 2009 its stage adaptation was performed at the National Theatre in London.