Biography
Beyond this there is no tomorrow…
Gun G.AYURZANA

Gun G.AYURZANA was born in Bayankhongor in 1970. After graduating from the Secondary School there, he went to study in Moscow, Russia. He had graduate in Creative Writing from Maxim Gorky Literary Institute with Master degree of Literature. After coming back to Mongolia he worked as a journalist in 1994-2000. In1995 Ayurzana married Ulziitugs, well known contemporary poet. They have now three children: two sons and daughter.

At the age of 24 Ayurzana released his first poetry book “Infant poems”. His seventh poetry book was published in 2009. All selected poems by him were published under the title "Meditations" in 2013.

His first novel “The Illusion” (or, “The Magic Mirage”) was published in 2003. The novel is the story of typical Mongolian family of communist period, of their offspring’s life after socialism, of unlucky artist-neurotic. The novel was awarded National literary prize “Altan Oed” (The Golden Feather). In 2005 and 2007 Ayurzana published his following novels “The Debt of Ten Dreams” and “Born of Echo”. These three novels became one trilogy, which had been published in one volume with unpublished before play “The Life of Dead Man”. In 2006 his and Ulziitugs’s three poetry readings organized in USA: the Indiana University, Bloomington, the University of Iowa, Iowa-City and the Mongolian Cultural Center, Washington DC. The following year he won visiting fellowship from IWP at the University of Iowa.

His novel “The Legend of the Shaman”, about a Northern Mongolian shaman and shamanism, was published in Ulaanbaatar in 2010 and became one of the most widely read books in contemporary Mongolian literature. The novel was broadcasted by Mongolian national radio in full text and won “Altan Oed” (The Golden Feather). The Goo Maral Academy of Mongolia named this novel as best literary work for 1st decade of XXI century – 2001-2010.

Ayurzana’s poems have been translated and published in more than 30 languages including Hungarian, Serbian, Macedonian, Turkish and Maltese. “The Wing of Dying Bird” and “The Legend of the Shaman” in Korean translation called big resonance between readers as if “The Debt of Ten Dreams" in Russian translation. The short story “Snow Romance” which has been translated into Russian, Polish, Japanese, Korean, as well as English marked by professor of Moscow Literary institute S.M.Kaznacheyev as one rank story with The Old Man and The Sea by Ernest Hemingway.

His most recent novel is "Their Shadow Longer Than Our Soul" (2021).

Another fresh works "Mysteries of Sacred Khangay Mountains" (2017) and "Spirit Formula" (2019) are continuing the atmosphere of his previous novels like "Shugden" (2012), "White Black Red" (2014) and "The Pulse" (2015).

Ayurzana has been awarded title of Honorary Man of Culture, considered the most prestigious award in his country in the field of culture, in 2009. Since 2000 he is a freelance writer so far and probably the only Mongolian writer who can live off his books.