In 1934, Maksim Gorky arranged for Platonov to be included in a “writer’s brigade” sent to Central Asia with the intention of publishing a collective work in celebration of ten years of Soviet Turkmenistan. (In early 1934, a collective work by over 30 Soviet writers was published about the construction of the White Sea Canal.) Platonov’s contribution to the Turkmen volume was a short story titled “"Takyr"” (or “"Salt-flats"”) about the liberation of a Persian slave girl. Platonov returned to Turkmenistan in 1935 and this was the basis for his novella "Soul" (or "Dzhan"). "Dzhan" is about a “non-Russian” economist from Central Asia, leaves Moscow to help his lost, nomadic nation called "Dzhan," of rejects and outcasts possessing nothing but their souls. The book was censored because of its graphic content and failure to fit the socialist realist framework; the uncensored text was published in 1999.