Yerlan Askarbekov Biography

Liter editors. He is engaged in political and PR consulting, conducts corporate trainings. This is a very well -read and educated person, and listening to how he discusses the literature and the future of Kazakhstani culture is a pleasure. So now I share this pleasure with you. We talked about the nuances and the “inner cuisine” of the Literary Prize of the Patron, discussed what a talented writer should be, and also tried to find out whether the journalist can become a writer - and vice versa.

Askarbekov Erlan Kuanyshevich was born in the year in Karaganda. He studied at the System Programmer at the Karaganda Polytechnic Institute now - the Karaganda State Technical University. And two years later, a talented young man shot a documentary, the plot of which tells about the AIDS epidemic in Temirtau for the competition "with the camera in Kazakhstan." By the way, this film hit six festivals!

Last year, the Literary Prize "Pulleum" was founded in Kazakhstan. Thanks to this competition, dozens of domestic authors got the opportunity to share their work with the whole country. And now we have talked with the founder of the award - Yerlan Askarbekov, who told us how the idea of ​​holding the first such competition in the history of Kazakhstan appeared.

How ambitious was your idea? Because it is the format of the novel that is the genre that “pulls out” both series and films, as well as the rest of the literature. Probably, these are quite ambitious goals. We believe that in Kazakhstan there are already authors who are able to win the largest book markets of the planet, due to the highest quality of their text.

These are the authors who now do not even suspect that they are outstanding writers, and over time they are activated and manifested. The fact is that I myself won the poetry competition in the year, I also participated in the first master class Olga Markova Musaget. And I, starting to work in the corporate sector, was very worried that it was overloaded with work, that inspiration was leaving me.

That's how I came up with this project - probably, as a kind of sublimation of creative energy. At the same time, I had a desire to help directly to the authors themselves, to contribute to the development of domestic literature. That the success of the project depends on our struggle for honest name and reputation. But we know that now, after the finals of the first season, the attitude of writers has improved sharply.

In fact, from the concept of folk vote we move on to the concept of a folk jury. We believe that the readership is the most strict. There is no professional jury as such. The jury is usually a source of conflicts of interests, both open and implicit. Therefore, the task of readers, that is, professional philologists, is to check the novels for compliance with formal requirements and allocate a short list.

This is necessary so that readers can already choose among obviously very good works. Is he on an annual basis now? The second season is being held now. At the moment, we have already gathered 19 novels, and 51 author registered. Last year, about half of those who registered submitted their work for the competition. Do you think it is worth expecting an increase in the number of participants this year?

We hope that there will be fifty, maybe sixty novels in the region. We have information that the country's best writers-from various cities-finally decided to participate that our project really woke up so many. And, finally, they looked at our interview, where we from the very beginning, almost all the time say that the authors first need to write the first version of the text. And then it must be rewritten, registered and handed over the finished work a few days before the deadline.

How could you describe a truly talented writer? Of course, everyone in his own way understands what a “talented writer” is, and every subjective opinion. But for me personally, this is a person who is equally gifted, because, of course, abilities are needed. And to exactly the same extent mercilessly hardworking. The more the author is merciless to himself and his draft, the more he loves himself.

I repeat once again that geniuses rewrote their texts many dozen times. How can you describe this world standard? What categories do you need to think to achieve it? Goethe, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Dante. These authors, of course, worked very deeply with a description of the human soul. These authors were not lazy and were not afraid to plunge, let’s say, wherever their imagination, their readers and their characters could bring them.

These people never followed fashion, they, on the contrary, formed the fashion - dictated the development of world literature. It can also be said that these people were therefore interesting for completely different peoples of the world, because they were able to reveal the national characteristics of their characters as much detail as possible. What do you think, but in the opposite direction it works?

He always gravitated to good literature and dreamed of it.Therefore, of course, the writer can become a journalist, and a journalist can become a writer. These professions, on the one hand, are adjacent. On the other hand, the same Ernest Hemingway could support and say that it would be better if the forces invested in journalism would be given directly to the literature itself, to write large and main texts.

The art of owning a word is extremely in demand - in PR, what is in literature, in the advertising business. Now SMM - maintenance of social networks - also absorbs many gifted people. This all arises precisely because of the contradiction between the literary talent of a person and the need to feed the family. This, in turn, also influenced the idea of ​​creating a prize. But should the winning romance must correspond to the genre of realism?

Can a novel in the style of postmodernism, futurism, or even science fiction? As Voltaire said, the main thing is that there is no boring genre. But the chronotope, in the words of Shklovsky, should just be inside recent years. But the segment can be chosen any - and one hundred twenty years, and one day, and one second. Therefore, the novel may well be in the genre of science fiction, and fairy tales, and parables, and anything else.

And about the place: at least half of the action should take place in Kazakhstan. That is, this, in principle, may be the history of our immigrants, migrant workers, but at least half of the events should still occur in Kazakhstan-maybe like flashbacks or as a parallel action. Naturally, you can combine different temporary layers in the style of postmodernism. What topics worry the most?

I would probably write about personal. I would also write about business and politics within Kazakhstan, and would mix all these topics together. That is, of course, I am worried about the topics that my life is related to. Speaking about business, I mean a large corporate business. Naturally, each author has his own unique fate, and his own set of those that excite him. The one that has different names, but for me it is God.

What should writers beware? And what should you pay more attention to? Do not take on some grandiose events, such as Covid or Kantar, which occurred literally recently. After all, then a lot of misinformation, a lot of confusion and a lot of fakes were scared. Therefore, I do not recommend writing on such difficult topics if you personally were not in the center of events. This applies to almost all writers - I recommend that you write exactly that you know the best.

If, say, you worked as a waiter in a restaurant, write a novel about the waiters. If you served the military, describe the military unit of the Kazakhstan army. If you work at a construction site, describe the construction, but do it the best in the world. Try to write such a novel that in style and interestingness will surpass everything that has ever been written.

This is probably a success recipe. Write what you know about and write the best in the world. What advice could you give them? There is no restriction on the number of attempts - that is, you can storm the peak of the "philanthropist" at least all your life, for decades, giving every year one novel. I advise you to definitely take literary courses in Kazakhstan, that is, it is necessary to support domestic courses.

By the way, we prepare an interview with the authors of various literary courses, and then we will collect a good article with all the coordinates. Naturally, we will translate it into the Kazakh language and post it on our website, as a kind of hint. In addition, we constantly - once again and again - we recommend that you be as merciless as possible in the process of rewriting.

This will not only create an excellent style, this will first of all allow you to very much process the plot and characters. Some characters will “decrease in size”, some will change, and some will grow up. Even your story itself can change very much - both structurally, and in mood, and by genre. The more you redo the entire text or some of its critical areas, the more perfection you will achieve.

Diana Tysymbaeva, Astana.