Olzhas Suleimenov has been an editor in film and publishing, secretary of the Writers’ Union of Kazakhstan and chairman of the Kazakh SSR State Committee on Cinematography. His political activities include a leading role in the 1989 anti-nuclear campaign, establishment of the Peoples’ Congress Party in 1991 and fifteen years as deputy to the Supreme Council of Kazakh SSR/USSR/Kazakhstan. He also served as the ambassador of the Republic of Kazakhstan to Rome and to UNESCO. In 2018, he was appointed director of the Centre for the Rapprochement of Cultures. Suleimenov’s most influential work, ‘AZi-Ya’, appeared in 1975 and since then he has published numerous other important titles. He has been awarded the Lenin Komsomol Prize (Kazakh SSR), the State Prize of the Kazakh SSR, the USSR Komsomol Prize, and a number of other state and international prizes, orders and medals. He is a People’s Writer of Kazakhstan and a Hero of Labour of Kazakhstan.
