Ardakh Nurgaz— poet, novelist, literature critic. He was born in 1972 in Xīnjiāng, Toli county, China.

As he came to Kazakhstan in 2003, he worked as the Chief Editor in "Foreign literature" newspaper, an editor in magazine "Zhalyn", a journalist in city newspaper, employee at the Kazakh academic drama thatre of M. Auezov.

Author of poetry books "Zhalgan bostandyk kitaby" ("Book of false freedom", 2009), "Arakus" ("Colibri", in Chinese and Kazakh languages, 2011), "Daldik ham tunyktyk" ("Precision and clarity", in English, Chinese and Kazakh languages, 2014), "A Garden of Trees and Other Poems" (2016), "Pebbles, Eggs and the Fence: A Collection of Poetry from Central Asia" ("Puncher & Wattmann" publishing house, Australia, 2020), monographs "Contemporary Kazakh poetry" (2010), "Tanym men talgam" ("Cognition and taste", 2018), narrative books "Syzyktar men nukteler" ("Lines and dots", 2010). Poetry was translated in English, Chinese and Russian languages.

The play "Men, men eshkim de emespin" ("I, I'm nobody at all") took first place in international literature contest "Rukh".

Ardak will tell the way poetry evolved from lyric to epic, form modernism to post-modernism. He will tell why literature act started by distinguished Kazakh poets Magzhan Zhumabayev and Zhumeken Nazhymedenov came to a halt. In addition you will learn which influences are crucial for contemporary Kazakh poetry and what is happening in this medium.

Form: video lecture
Language: Kazakh
Subtitles: Russian, English
Duration: 45 minutes

Pavel Bannikov is a poet, editor and publisher.

He was born in Alma-Ata, and attended literature course of "Musaget" public fund in 2004. Graduated from The National Pedagogical University's philological faculty in 2007. In 2005-2006 he was an editor in literature and artistic issue "Apollinariy". Since the end of 2006 he started working as an editor and columnist in franchise magazines (Men's Health, Cosmopolitan, "Vokrug sveta" etc.). Compiler, editor and co-publisher of various collections of works and books of Kazakh writers. Author of five poetry books.

Co-founder of "Yshsho Odyn" (2009) antiperiodic issue, "Sozyv" (est. 2012) poetic festival, "Polyfonia" (est. 2014) literature festival.

His first publication was in "Apollinariy" magazine in 2004. His work was published in "Vozduh", "Znamya" magazines, "Literaturnaya Alma-Ata", "sorok.chetyre", "Dom Ilyi" almanacs, and on "Topos", "Kastopravda" websites etc.

In 2008 his work was short-listed for the "LiteratuRRentgen" award, from 2009 he's on board of award's nominators. Entered long-list of "Debut" award twice, short-list of "Litsey" award (2017), honorary list of "Poesiya" award (2020). He's on board of nominators of award named after Arkadiy Dragomoshenko. A lecturer at the Open literature school of Almaty (poetry seminar). Member of editors board of "Polutona" project (since 2020), editor-in-chief of "Factcheck in Kazakhstan" project.

Pavel will tell about how Russian poetry developed and evolved in Kazakhstan since 1991, is there an Almaty school of Russian poetry, and the image of Kazakh Russians.

Format: video lecture
Language: Russian
Subtitles: Kazakh, English
Duration: 45 minutes