Creativity in the context of kazakh prose: Why masks wonder around [Kūrybiškumas kazachų prozos kontekste: Kodėl kaukės kelia susidomėjimą]

Particular genres are becoming more appealing in modern fiction, including dystopia, post-apocalyptic novels, and eco-horror. Post-industrial consciousness threatens the world due to environmental impacts and the loss of the most important living “landmarks” (orientations), i.e., dehumanization. In the “man versus nature” relations system, the Kazakh writer Aslan Zhaksylykov differentiates key elements in the “man versus man” paradigm: first, the “social animal” and secondly, the involuntary outcast or biological mutant. Starting with the Dreams of the Damned (first edition in 2006) literary cycle, in the creative thinking perspective the author discusses the “ilinxian” text phenomenon, the discursive space of connectomes and humanistic ideas embodied in ethno-cultural masks. © 2018 The Author(s).