It’s impossible to discuss today’s Uzbekistan, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s “New Uzbekistan,” without making a comparisons to the old Uzbekistan, the country Islam Karimov built. The stories of these two Uzbekistans – and the country’s two leaders since its independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 – are woven together beautifully in Joanna Lillis’s new book, “Silk Mirage: Through the Looking Glass in Uzbekistan.” Lillis is a Kazakhstan-based journalist who has lived and worked in Central Asia since 2001, including in Uzbekistan (2001-2005).

In the following interview with The Diplomat’s Managing Editor Catherine Putz, Lillis discusses the contrasts inherent to Uzbekistan, between its beauty and and the brutality of its governments; the potential for a true historical reckoning; what the Gulnara Karimova saga tells us about Uzbek politics, and much more.

There’s a dichotomy to Uzbekistan, which you describe in the introduction: a contrast between the vibrant beauty of the place – its people and culture – and the brutality meted out at times by its government. In what ways did your recognition of this dichotomy guide the writing of this book? How did you try to capture the complexity of Uzbekistan?

In the writing of “Silk Mirage” I was very much guided by that dichotomy between the vibrant beauty of Uzbekistan and the brutality meted out at times to its people by its rulers. I was keen to communicate the sense that Uzbekistan can be very different under the surface to the way it sometimes looks on the surface, because it’s easy for visitors to be d