Aigul Kemelbayeva

Aigul Kemelbayeva was born in 1965 in the village of , in the region of Semey, Kazakhstan. She began writing at a young age, producing her first novel, A Journey to the Seventh Continent, at age 15, which came second in a national youth literary contest. After graduating from Al-Farabi Kazakh National University with a degree in journalism in 1987, she attended the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute in Moscow, graduating in 1994. == Career ==

Kemelbayeva is now based in Nur-Sultan. It is considered a landmark work, the first such work written by a Kazakh woman that goes beyond the socialist realist conventions that characterized prior Kazakh literature. She is also considered one of the first Kazakh literary writers to discuss issues of gender. In addition to The Tower, her books include 2001's Tobylgysai, 2013's ''Mazhnun's Heart'', and 2016's Soz Hikmet. Kemelbayeva is also a literary critic, having written more than 200 articles on the subject. She has also worked on scripts for the documentaries Sultan Orazalin (2013), Suleiman Eskarayev (2012), and Zhiembet zhyrau (2014). Her various literary awards include the Daryn national youth literature award in 2000. == References ==