Helen

Dr. Helen M. Faller

Helen is a writer, anthropologist and cultural entrepreneur who believes in using the arts to create connections.

Her second book, Love Feasts: A Memoir of Dumplings–and Divorce–on the Silk Road, will speak to anyone who has endured a broken heart, tried to be a good parent in troubled times, or yearned for unconditional love.

Love Feasts tells the story of a single mom, brokenhearted and reeling from divorce who drowns her sorrows in jiaozi and daydreams of afternoons spent making dumplings with Tatar women in Russia. A year later, she hits the Silk Road with her three-year-old daughter and brand-new boyfriend in tow. She hopes that learning to transform simple ingredients into life-sustaining nourishment will teach her the magic to keep a decent man.

Follow Helen’s mosaiqa exploits on Facebook here and as her alternative persona, the dumpling girl. We’re also on Instagram and Twitter.

Helen is a nerdy anthropologist. To find out more about that, click here. Here’s information about her first book on Tatarstan.

Helen lived in Russia right after the USSR collapsed. She wrote about this in the Russia Cycle stories here.

Helen produces music. For more on that, see here and here.

Helen toured Kyrgyz epic singer Rysbai Isakov, the top-ranked (yes, they have contests and ranking) singer of The Manas, the longest epic poem in the world.

To contact Helen, send an email to [email protected].

Brief Bio

Helen has been involved in cultural exchange with Central Asia since working with Kazakhstan’s Roksonaki at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in 2002. She has organized exchanges with musicians, artists and artisans, and religious leaders from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.

Inspired by her work with Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Project, she developed the Kyrgyz Cultural Performances tour in 2005, featuring Rysbai Isakov, renowned singer of the world’s longest recorded epic, The Manas, and Akylbek Kasabolotov, a brilliantly talented traditional musician and member of Kyrgyzstan’s Tengir Too.

Her second independent tour was Nauryz with Roksonaki in 2008 with Yo-Yo Ma’s friends from Kazakhstan, Roksonaki. To learn more click on Music.

Helen published her first book, Nation, Language, Islam: Tatarstan’s Sovereignty Movement, with the Central European University Press in 2011.

Media Appearances

Interview on WFMU, New York, New York Nauryz with Roksonaki Tour

Interview on WFMU, New York, New York Kyrgyz Cultural Performances

Interview on Wisconsin Public Radio, Madison, Wisconsin Nauryz with Roksonaki Tour – audio no longer available

Turkish Republic Television International Kyrgyz Cultural Performances

Allegra Laboratory Blog – On Russia

Aga Khan Trust for Culture Musical Geographies, London, England

The Kennan Institute, Washington, DC

Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments

US Department of State Policy Recommendation/Kitchen Talk

The Lafayette Practice, Paris, France