Aitmatov, Chingiz (1928– )

Kirghiz novelist. His work, drawing on oral epic tradition (the Kirghiz language had no alphabet until 1928), dramatizes the conflict between the tribal customs of the Kirghiz nomads and the Western values of the Soviet administration, as in Bely parokhod/The White Steamship (1970) and I dolshe veka dlitsya den/The Day Lasts Longer than a Century (1980). His short-story collection Povesti gor I stepey/Tales of Mountains and Steppes (1963) won the 1963 Lenin Prize. He received the Soviet state prize for literature in 1968.

He was a correspondent for the newspaper Pravda in Kirghiz 1959–66. Other works include Trudnaya pereprava/A Difficult Passage (1956), Litsom k litsu/Face to Face (1957), Proshchay, Gulsary!/Farewell, Gulsary! (1967), and Pervy uchitel/The First Teacher (1967).