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Mosquito by Akhmet Baitursynov (with translator Jake Zawlacki)
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Mosquito by Akhmet Baitursynov (with translator Jake Zawlacki)

Jake Zawlacki joins the podcast to talk about his translation of Akhmet Baitursynov's 1911 poetry collection Mosquito, a political tract that contains his hopes and fears for the Kazakh people and a yet-to-exist state.

Show Notes:

This week, Jake Zawlacki joins Cameron to talk about his translation of Akhmet Baitursynov's Mosquito. Although it's appearing in English now for the first time, the collection itself is more than a century old--originally published in 1911, Mosquito is a clarion call to the Kazakh people. Living in land still subject to the Russian empire, Baitursynov's collection is a political tract, an appeal for unity, a sorrowful reflection on their world and a hopeful verse for the Kazakh future.

Buy a copy of Mosquito from Academic Studies Press here (https://www.academicstudiespress.com/9798897831616/) or get it wherever you buy your books.

Jake Zawlacki is a writer, translator, and scholar, and currently teaches writing at the University of San Diego. He is the editor of Conversations with Todd McFarlane and Conversations with Denys Cowan as well as the translator of the first English-language translation of Akhmet Baitursynov’s Mosquito. Zawlacki holds degrees from Louisiana State University, University of San Diego, and Stanford University, and his creative work has been published in The Saturday Evening PostThe JournalCitron Review, and Roanoke Review.

The music used in this episode was “Старое Кино / Staroye Kino,” by Перемотка / Peremotka. You can find more of their work on Bandcamp and Youtube

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