The Translation Centre under the Cabinet of Ministers of the Azerbaijan Republic (AzTC) on Wednesday hosted a presentation of the book "A Conversation on the Way Over" by Saday Budagly, a notable short-story writer and translator.

AzTC Director Afaq Masud in her opening remarks said: "I got acquainted with Saday at a seminar for young writers in 1978 at Zagulba. Young authors read their poems and stories, with further discussions there. That was the place where I first got to know his writing. I still remember the short story's title, and I'd say even now I am under the impression of that story: how a very young author could have described the emotional stress of a child in an unlike artistic nicety with experience of elder writers' restraint and patience. That is what we call Literature. The writer is able to set up with a story. Saday rarely writes, but his writings can reside in the memory for a long time. Saday doesn't try to be in plain view of the public and doesn't show tendency to be notable; he never considers Literature as a source of profit and fame. He never changed his loyalty to his pen and word into anything in the epoch when literary values were lost, literary books turned to be very cheap waste paper, he continued his activity in his own calm literary atmosphere. Today Budagly celebrates turning sixty and the book published by AzTC has been his first book printed in Latin graphic over the last twenty years. The brief bibliographic reference states that in the early eighties he studied at Moscow-based Maxim Gorky's Literature Institute. Within a short period - from 1982 to 1986 he was awarded for some Russian literary editions: He is a Laureate of the Moscow weekly "Nedelya" magazine (1982); a prize for "Best Story of the Year" created by "Drujba Narodov" (1982).

We hope that the writer will also be duly appreciated in Azerbaijan. Saday Budagly is the master of literary translation. He has translated works by M. Bulgakov, Y.Kawabata, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Mario V. Llosa, Juan Carlos Onetti, Camilo José Cela, and Miguel Delibes which occupy a worthy place among the jewels of the national literary translation."

For the translation of "Master and Margarita" he was awarded a "Golden pen" prize of the Ministry of Culture of the Azerbaijan Republic (2009)."

Next speakers were Budagly's close associates and team mates: chief editor of Khazar World Literature magazine Zakir Fakhri, chief editor of Aydin Yol newspaper Yashar Aliyev, as well as İlqar Alfioğlu, Behlul Seyfeddinoğlu, Xanım İsmayılqızı, Zahid Sarıtorpaq, Alisamid Kür, Etimad Başkeçid, Nariman Abdülrahmanlı, Mahir Qarayev, and others. 

Gallery