Eldar Sattarov is a writer from

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a European Kazakhstan, small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, north and west, China to th ...

Early life

He was born in 1973 in

Almaty Almaty, formerly Alma-Ata, is the List of most populous cities in Kazakhstan, largest city in Kazakhstan, with a population exceeding two million residents within its metropolitan area. Located in the foothills of the Trans-Ili Alatau mountains ...

to a

Vietnamese Vietnamese may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia * Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam ** Overseas Vietnamese, Vietnamese people living outside Vietna ...

father and a

Tatar Tatar may refer to: Peoples * Tatars, an umbrella term for different Turkic ethnic groups bearing the name "Tatar" * Volga Tatars, a people from the Volga-Ural region of western Russia * Crimean Tatars, a people from the Crimea peninsula by the B ...

mother. In the early 1990s he sang in the first punk rock bands of his country. He worked in a factory.

Career

He worked as a journalist, and started translating and writing in 2000. The books he translated from English, French, Spanish and Italian were published in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

and include authors such as

Guy Debord Guy-Ernest Debord (; ; 28 December 1931 – 30 November 1994) was a French Marxist theorist, philosopher, filmmaker, critic of work, member of the Letterist International, founder of a Letterist faction, and founding member of the Situat ...

Raoul Vaneigem Raoul Vaneigem (; ; ; born 21 March 1934) is a Belgian writer known for his 1967 book ''The Revolution of Everyday Life''. Biography Vaneigem was born in Lessines (in Hainaut Province, Hainaut, Belgium) and studied romance philology at the Fre ...

Antonin Artaud Antoine Maria Joseph Paul Artaud (; ; 4September 18964March 1948), better known as Antonin Artaud, was a French artist who worked across a variety of media. He is best known for his writings, as well as his work in the theatre and cinema. Widely ...

Francisco Ferrer Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia (; January 14, 1859 – October 13, 1909), widely known as Francisco Ferrer (), was a Spanish radical freethinker, anarchist, and educationist behind a network of secular, private, libertarian schools in and aroun ...

Giorgio Agamben Giorgio Agamben ( ; ; born 22 April 1942) is an Italian philosopher best known for his work investigating the concepts of the state of exception, form-of-life (borrowed from Ludwig Wittgenstein) and '' homo sacer''. The concept of biopolitic ...

, and

Jacques Camatte Jacques Camatte (1935 – 19 April 2025) was a French writer, philosopher, Marxist theoretician and member of the International Communist Party, a primarily Italian left communist organisation under the influence of Amadeo Bordiga. After Bor ...

. Sattarov's first novel, ''Losing Our Streets'', about teenage street gangs and drug addiction in the 1980s

, published in 2010, was sold in

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

and

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

, generating positive feedback from literary critics and readers. His second book, ''Transit. Saigon-Almaty'', published in Kazakhstan in 2015 and later re-published in Russia under the title ''Chao Vietnam'' in 2018, was a historical novel about Indochina wars. It was short-listed for the National Bestseller award in Russia and took second place in the final, making Sattarov the first ever

Central Asia Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...

n author to enter the final of Russia's major literary award since the dissolution of the

USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

. His third novel ''The Thread of Time'' was dedicated to a journey of the left-wing idea in the twentieth century from

Antonio Gramsci Antonio Francesco Gramsci ( , ; ; 22 January 1891 – 27 April 1937) was an Italian Marxist philosophy, Marxist philosopher, Linguistics, linguist, journalist, writer, and politician. He wrote on philosophy, Political philosophy, political the ...

and

Amadeo Bordiga Amadeo Bordiga (13 June 1889 – 25 July 1970) was an Italian Marxist theorist. A revolutionary socialist, Bordiga was the founder of the Communist Party of Italy (PCdI), a member of the Communist International (Comintern), and later a leading ...

through

situationists The Situationist International (SI) was an Proletarian internationalism, international organization of social revolutionaries made up of avant-garde artists, intellectuals, and Political philosophy, political theorists. It was prominent in Eu ...

and up to the author's personal meetings with

Gilles Dauvé Gilles Dauvé (pen name Jean Barrot; born 1947) is a French ultra-left political theorist, school teacher, and translator, associated with the development of communization theory. Biography In collaboration with other left communists such a ...

and

, gained him a reputation of "Russia's

Jello Biafra Eric Reed Boucher (born June 17, 1958), known professionally as Jello Biafra, is an American singer, spoken word artist and political activist. He is the former lead singer and songwriter for the San Francisco punk rock band Dead Kennedys. Init ...

". The novel ends with a prophecy about " potential death of capital". Sattarov also writes in English. His short story "Mountain Maid" was published in Singapore and UK, as a part of "Eurasian Monsters" collection edited by Margret Helgadottir. He lives in

Kazan Kazan; , IPA: Help:IPA/Tatar, ɑzanis the largest city and capital city, capital of Tatarstan, Russia. The city lies at the confluence of the Volga and the Kazanka (river), Kazanka Rivers, covering an area of , with a population of over 1. ...

(Russia) and

(Kazakhstan).An interview with Eldar Sattarov
by

Radio Russia Radio Rossii (, ''Radio of Russia'') is the primary public radio station in Russia. History Radio Rossii began broadcasting on 10 December 1990. The radio station is part of the state-owned unitary enterprise VGTRK, which also includes televis ...

In August 2022 Sattarov stated in his interview with the Kazakh channel Abai TV that in January of the same year he had signed a contract in Moscow for his fourth novel “The Stooges”, dedicated to the global oil & gas market, however its publication was suspended (as well as the first paper edition of a book by

in Russian translated by Sattarov from French and contracted with the same publishing house) due to a crisis caused by the

2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sattarov, Eldar 1973 births Living people Kazakhstani people of Vietnamese descent Kazakhstani people of Tatar descent Kazakhstani journalists 20th-century Kazakhstani male writers 20th-century Kazakhstani writers Kazakhstani translators Kazakhstani expatriates in Russia 20th-century Kazakhstani male singers 21st-century Kazakhstani male writers 21st-century Kazakhstani writers

Early life

Career

See also

References