Our Authors
The writers and editors behind the Diverse Voices of Modern Kazakhstan series.
Nurlan Orazalin
One of Kazakhstan’s leading contemporary poets — a public intellectual, statesman, and thinker whose work defies genre. His poetry is a cultural, historical, and philosophical record of a people and an era, echoing with collective memory, pride, grief, and love of the land.
Maruana Khamzaqizi
Kazakh writer, translator, and cultural figure, and a member of the Writers’ Union of Kazakhstan. Since 2000 her award-winning stories and essays have been published and translated across Central Asia and beyond, including in Turkey and Azerbaijan; she received the Ivan Bunin Medal in 2021. Surviving Against All Odds is her tribute to her father and a record of Kazakhstan’s 20th-century history.
Nina Trox
Oksana Trutneva, who writes under the pen name Nina Trox, is a prose writer, poet, and literary critic. She trained at the literary masterclass of the Musaget Foundation and, in 2008, studied with English writer Tobias Hill and English poet Pascale Petit. She teaches and leads the prose seminar at the Open Literary School of Almaty (OLSHA). Her work has appeared in journals including Prostor, Tamyr, Literaturnaya Alma-Ata, and Russia’s Novy Mir.
Baktykozha Izmukhambetov
A rare figure in modern Kazakh literature: a senior statesman — Minister of Energy, regional governor, Speaker of Parliament, and Hero of Labour of Kazakhstan (2023) — who remained, throughout, a poet and member of the Writers’ Union of Kazakhstan. His verse carries the memory of the Zhaiyk river and the steppe, and the voice of a man who helped build a country while keeping faith with its roots.
Bigeldy Gabdullin
President of the Kazakh PEN Club and founder of Audarma Publishing House. As series editor of Diverse Voices of Modern Kazakhstan, he selects the works and writes the introductions that frame each volume for international readers.