Nurmurat Sarykhanov

Born 1906 in the village of Geok-Tepe, in what is now Bakharden Raion, Turkmen SSR; died at the front May 4, 1944, near the village of Delakeu, in what is now Novye Aneny Raion, Moldavian SSR. Soviet Turkmen writer. Participant in the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45.

From 1929 to 1937, Sarykhanov was a journalist in the armed forces. His fiction deals primarily with Soviet life and the development of a new way of life among the Turkmen people: the short stories “The Son-in-law,” “The White House,” “The Last Kibitka,” “The Dream,” and “Love.” Respect for the culture of the past is the theme of the short story The Book (published separately in 1951) and the novella Shukur Bakhshi; the latter is written in the form of a dastan (a Middle Eastern epic genre). Sarykhanov made extensive use of the traditions of folk literature, skillfully adapting them to the stylistic conventions of the modern short story.