The Kazakh PEN club presented its annual awards. In the main nomination the winner was Kazhigali Mukhambetkaliyev. The award named after Abay has been granted to Murat Auezov, the Yuri Kazakov award to Shuga Nurpeisova. Awarding ceremony took place at the PEN conference in the National Library of the Republic of Kazakhstan in Almaty.
For the first time in a long time, the two leading figures of Kazakh literature and old literary opponents - Olzhas Suleimenov and Abdizhamil Nurpeisov sat at the same table. Both of them noted the active work of the Kazakh PEN club over the past three years. Olzhas Suleimenov emphasized that for the second time in 25 years he has been sitting in the presidium and this time, he can say, that the Kazakh PEN club finally took place as an authoritative cultural institution.
During the conference, the president of the Kazakh PEN club Bigeldy Gabdullin reported on the work of the organization for the year of 2016, noting, in particular, the active work of the association on the organization and implementation of literary translations. For the first time, professional English translators were involved for this work.
Last year, by the order of the Kazakh PEN club the publishing house Metropolitan Classics (New York) published the following books:
Olzas Suleimenov, “Code of the Word”
Smagul Yelubay, “The Lonely Yurt”
Abish Kekilbaev, “The End of the Legend”
Professional interpreters such as Catherine Fitzpatrick, Marina Vlaadi, Ihar Kozak have been involved in translation.
Each book is printed in the amount of 300 copies in a hard cover gift version and a soft cover for presentation, as well as placed on Internet sites Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Ingram where it can be ordered and purchased from anywhere in the world. Books can be obtained both in the soft cover version and in electronic format. Representative copies were sent to the major libraries in the United States as well as the universities and colleges where the culture and language of Kazakhstan is studied; to central publishing houses, to the embassy of Kazakhstan in the USA and to the permanent mission of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the United Nations in New York.
Moreover, a two-volume book of works by young Kazakhstani prose writers have also been published in Russian and Kazakh languages in 2016.
In his speech, Gabdullin noted that the Kazakh PEN club has not weakened its work aimed at protecting freedom of expression. PEN spoke in support of journalists Seytkazy Matayev and Vladimir Kozlov.
Furthermore, two vice-presidents of the Kazakh PEN club have been elected at the conference. They are Farkhat Tamendarov and Nurtore Zhusip. It was reported that a framework agreement had been signed with the Canadian publishing house Mosaic Press. This means that the work on
the publication of the books of the series "We – the Kazakhs ..." will continue not only in the UK. Recall, this series was initiated by the Kazakh PEN club. Within the framework of the project, the best works of Russian and Kazakh authors are translated into English and published in the UK. One of the last presented books in this series is a collection of selected works by Herold Belger.
Photocredit: Pavel Bannikov