Askar Tokmagambetov

Born Sept. 6 (19), 1905, in what is now the Eighteenth Party Congress Sovkhoz, Terenozek Raion, Kzyl-Orda Oblast. Soviet Kazakh poet. Member of the CPSU since 1931.

Tokmagambetov graduated from the Institute of Journalism in Moscow in 1934. He began publishing in 1924. He wrote the poetry collections Songs of Labor (1928), Construction (1931), Selected Works (1945), Dastans (1949), Toward the Summits (1950), and Cranes, Beautiful Cranes (1965), as well as narrative poems, fables, and plays. His main themes include Lenin and the party, friendship among peoples, and creative labor. The narrative poem Fate of a Poet (1965) is devoted to Saken Seifullin. Tokmagambetov published the novella Four Years, Four Hours (1940) and the novel Father and Son (1961; Russian translation, 1963). He also writes for children.

Tokmagambetov has translated works by V. V. Mayakovsky, S. Aini, and J. Tuwim. He has been awarded the Order of the October Revolution, four other orders, and several medals.