Berdi Kerbabayev

Berdi Kerbabayev received a madrasa education, began writing poetry young and later turned to prose, becoming a founder of the Turkmen novel.

His novel The Decisive Step, about a Turkmen village in the years of revolution and civil war, won the Stalin Prize; he received it twice in all.

He became People's Writer of the Turkmen SSR in 1967 and a Hero of Socialist Labour in 1969, was an academician of the Academy of Sciences, and his works have been translated into many languages.