Eldar Sattarov is a writer from Kazakhstan.
Early life He was born in 1973 in Almaty to a Vietnamese father and a Tatar mother.Book Review in "Morning Russia" on Russia-1 TV channel In the early 1990s he sang in the first punk rock bands of his country.Almaty punkThe year punk broke in Central Asia.DGF 1995 demo He worked in a factory.
Career He worked as a journalist, and started translating and writing in 2000.The Rules by Donna Tartt, Eldar Sattarov, John Turturro, Geoff Church in Esquire-Kazakhstan Literary issue No. 9, October 2016, p. 76, 78 ISSN 2311-102X The books he translated from English, French, Spanish and Italian were published in Moscow and include authors such as Guy Debord, Raoul Vaneigem, Antonin Artaud, Francisco Ferrer, Giorgio Agamben,Debord, Agamben et al in Russian and Jacques Camatte."You have to read Jacques Camatte, because understanding the historical process is one of the rare ways not to become crazy" - "il Covile" magazine
Sattarov's first novel, Losing Our Streets, about teenage street gangs and drug addiction in the 1980s Almaty, published in 2010, was sold in Russia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine, generating positive feedback from literary critics and readers.Review of E.Sattarov's "Losing Our Streets" by Mr.P.Podkossov, General Director of ""Alpina Non-Fiction" Publishing House (in Russian)Review of E.Sattarov's "Losing Our Streets" by a Hip-hop MC Sir G. from "Furymo" band (White Smoke Community), in Russian
His second book, Transit. Saigon-Almaty, published in Kazakhstan in 2015 and later re-published in Russia under the title Chao VietnamChao Vietnam by E.Sattarov, Moscow, 2018 in 2018, was a historical novel about Indochina wars. It was short-listed for the National Bestseller award in Russia and took second place in the final,Indiana University's guide on Russian Literary Awards2016 National Bestseller Award Short List & the Penguin Book of Russian Poetry making Sattarov the first ever Central Asian author to enter the final of Russia's major literary award since the dissolution of the USSR.Nicola Lombardozzi, "And Russia celebrates a Vietnamese hero", la Repubblica, 22 May 2016"The Phenomenon of Literary Awards in the Contemporary Russian Literature" - Thesis by Chiara Munerato, Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Relatore: Ch.ssa Prof.ssa Donatella Possamai, Correlatore: Ch.ssa Prof.ssa Svetlana Nistratova
His third novel The Thread of Time was dedicated to a journey of the left-wing idea in the twentieth century from Antonio Gramsci and Amadeo Bordiga through situationists and up to the author's personal meetings with Gilles Dauvé and Jacques Camatte, gained him a reputation of "Russia's Jello Biafra". The novel ends with a prophecy about "potential death of capital".
Sattarov also writes in English. His short story "Mountain Maid" was published in SingaporeStardust, dystopia and the Asian imagination – Kitaab, Singapore publishes major Asian speculative fiction collectionWhat readers can expect from a new anthology of Asian speculative fiction and UK, as a part of "Eurasian Monsters" collection edited by Margret Helgadottir.Eurasian Monsters review by Rachel Cordasco, Strange Horizons 7 June 2021 He lives in Kazan (Russia) and Almaty (Kazakhstan).An interview with Eldar Sattarov by Radio Russia In August 2022 Sattarov stated in his interview with the Kazakh channel Abai TV that in January of the same year he had signed a contract in Moscow for his fourth novel “The Stooges”, dedicated to the global oil & gas market, however its publication was suspended (as well as the first paper edition of a book by Jacques Camatte in Russian translated by Sattarov from French and contracted with the same publishing house) due to a crisis caused by the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
See also Russian literature
References