At the very beginning of the film "The Mirror" by Tarkovsky, a recording of a doctor working with a strongly stuttering person is shown. After just a few minutes of the procedure, the patient was able to exclaim “I can speak!”
We can speak!
"We are the people of Kazakhstan and we are united by a common destiny!"
“We are a unique people with our own view of the world unlike anything else!”.
We have an ancient history, but as well, we have, in the present time, an increasing number of bright stars in the Arts, in cinema, in music, in popular culture, and more and more in science.
We have a huge and exciting future and we have several great poets.
But
The great novel “Abai`s Way” was written at the beginning of the 20th century but for the next 100 years practically nothing from Kazakhstan has been published. Perhaps the closest to Auezov was when Baurzhan Momysh-uly, wrote his story “Our Family “and other novels, but his works too are ended by the middle of the century..
However, the ancient Kazakhs are the authors of at least 40 major epics. As a people we are characterized by vast, epic thinking, by natural curiosity, and with a high culture of poetic improvisation, a worldwide openness and responsiveness. For thousands of years, our nomadic tribes have developed their own, special view of the world.
Our recent 120-year history is full of many tragic and comic events. There is no family in Kazakhstan, there is no corner in the country where there are no “grandmother’s” and “grandfather’s” memories of the turbulent 20th century, and we, born in the 70-80s, have vivid memories of perestroika and the turbulent nineties.
But no one has written about this and YOU alone can change it.
Could you write a historical novel that will explain us as a people, that will explain our identity to all the peoples of the Earth?
Our country is vast; its territory is larger than the European Union before the expansion in 2010. Perhaps YOU can write a beautiful “novel of the road”. Our film directors and scriptwriters have long worked along this path. Perhaps you can too.
Our people have gone from almost illiteracy to the appearance of many of our doctoral students in the best universities in the world in 100 years.
Perhaps it is a good reason to write “parenting novel”.
Perhaps you can write about modern Kazakhstan in a picaresque novel. Perhaps a fantasy, or psychological, a children`s novel and so on. Could you write a novel in verses? Could you invent a new style, a new word, a new trend, a new scale of time? Can you compress 120 years into 80 pages, or stretch one minute into 400 pages.
We welcome "Any genre except boring."
The winner can be a young man of 18 years of age who only just got a passport, or a young woman still at university. On the other hand it may be an old man of 80 years. The winner might live in the centre of the capital or in the farthest pasture. They might live abroad, no problem as long as they have our Kazakhstani passport.
Well, those are my rules, now here are my thoughts and motivations
It is a rare occasion when participation alone is truly a victory, because a nation that reflects upon itself, its existence, its collective soul, because only such a nation is capable of the greatest scientific achievements and feats of human nobility.
“When we remember what we share, and remember what unites us it will unite us forever”.
Perhaps some people may not like our prize mechanism. Fine! Create your own literary competitions and awards. The more there are the better for all of us.
The only justified fear of the writer is not society, not the state, not “censorship”, not the fear of social censure or modern idiotic trolling, but the fear of a blank sheet. However, overcome that fear and what can be greater than creating a new fictional, but such a real world on paper and that is why a novel. It is because this genre is an icebreaker and one that promotes all other genres and even art forms.
The project was conceived in 2003 and then I started an active search for sponsors. It continued through 2005, 2009, 2011, 2013, and 2016, until at the beginning of 2021, I found and got approval from a Maecenas.
Of course, we must think in the future to expand the project, to include the entire Kazakh diaspora, to include other genres and types of art, and we are. Our dream is to create a project that will work every year, for centuries, and continue stimulating the development of our culture.
So, let this small essay help the doubting and timid among you to dispel all your fears and take part in this competition. The more works there are submitted, the more public attention will be drawn to the great quality of Kazakh literature. That way, you win and we all win.
Founder of the Prize,
Yerlan Askarbekov
