People's Writer of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, President of the Kazakhstan Union of Writers and member of the Kazakhstan Academy of Sciences.
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Among his works stand out Kyz-Zhibek (Қыз Жібек), first libretto to a Kazakh opera, with music by Yevgeny Brusilovsky, and The tragedy of the poet (Трагедия поэта), written in 1958 (first version titled Ақан сері Ақтоқты, 1942), that dealt with the tragedy of Ajani, a Kazakh singer and composer of the 19th century.