The Modern Novel

Biography

Talasbek Asemkulov was born in 1955 in the railway station in Tansyk. He was descended from a line of dombyra players and spent his life trying to restore the tradition. Immediately after birth he was adopted by his maternal grandfather, Jünisbay Stambaev, a famous dombyra player, and was taught by him, till he died when Asemkulov was eighteen. Asemkulov became a musician, a researcher into myths and legends, a literary and musical critic, a translator from Russian into Kazakh, a music master, himself making dombyras, and a writer and scriptwriter. He died in 2014.