The current century has given us comfort and vast opportunities for development, but, having received all this, we have become more unhappy, lost and disunited. We have lost the understanding of the need to know your roots. And for a person in any era, it has been important to recognize themselves as part of something bigger, to be not just in a family, but to be a component in the clan system. Without roots, each of us is alone and weak.

Those were different tears. Sweet, tart, like bird cherry honey - for those who reunited with relatives, bitter wormwood - for those who received belated funeral notices, with the taste of salty hope - for those who continued to wait...

'Honey and a Little Wormwood' by Maria Omar gives us back our understanding of the importance of family, its history and traditions. Together with the author, we travel through several generations of a single Kazakh family. We see how feelings flare and fade, lovers meet and part, lives begin and end, and we become convinced again and again of Leo Tolstoy's adage that 'all happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.'

The book is a breathtaking read. The language is lively and figurative. It seems as if you only need to close your eyes to feel a gentle breeze and the scent of steppe grass.