Suiunbai Eraliev

Born Oct. 15, 1921, in the village of Uch-Emchek, Talas Raion, Kirghiz SSR. Soviet Kirghiz poet. People’s Poet of Kirghizia (1974). Member of the CPSU since 1942.

Eraliev took part in the Great Patriotic War of 1941—45. He graduated from the Higher Party School under the Central Committee of the CPSU in 1955. His works first appeared in print in 1944. Eraliev is the author of the collections First Sounding (1949) and Native Land (1950), which deal with his contemporaries and with toilers in the fields and mountains, and the collection of philosophic lyrics White Odors (1969; Russian translation, 1969). In the narrative poems Journey to the Stars (1966) and Journey Into Life (1967) he introduced free verse into Kirghiz literature. He has also written works for children. Works by Eraliev have been translated into other languages of the USSR and into foreign languages.