Olzhas Suleimenov was born on May 18, 1936 in Almaty. Upon graduation, he received the specialty of an engineer-geologist at the Kazakh State University. He began writing poetry in 1955.
“Literary newspaper” was the first of the central printed publications published in 1959 a selection of poems by Olzhas Suleimenov. A year earlier, he entered the Higher Literary Courses at the Gorky Literary Institute in Moscow at the Department of Poetry Translation.
It is not known how the poet’s creative path would have developed if fate had not intervened. When the first book was being prepared for publication, Suleimenov was expelled from the institute for a fight in a dormitory. He had to return to Kazakhstan, and here came his finest hour.
On the eve of the flight into space, Yuri Gagarin, the editor of "Kazakhstanskaya Pravda" ordered the young poet poems about this event. The next morning they were printed in the newspaper and scattered over Kazakh cities in the form of leaflets. Well, Suleimenov turned the poem into a poem “Earth, bow to man!”, which had a resounding success for the Soviet people impressed by the grandiose event.
The poem was printed in newspapers, read on radio and television. The poet was invited to read it in factories and universities, and then included in the Soviet delegations. “Earth, bow to man!” the Sorbonne and Columbia University said. The Rectorate of the Literary Institute had to forget about the fight.
Since then, collections of poems by Olzhas Suleimenov come out regularly, and he himself works in the literary magazine Prostor and the film studio Kazakhfilm. In 1966, according to his script, the first feature film - "Land of the Fathers", and the following year he received the Lenin Prize for the collection "Good Time of Sunrise".
In 1975, the writer is waiting for another scandal. His book, "Az and Me." The book of a well-meaning reader was the reason for the dismissal of the director of the publishing house, who published it. It not only angered the country’s leadership, but also became the object of serious scientific criticism, including from academician Likhachev.
In the future, Olzhas Suleimenov publishes collections and writes scripts. He holds the first posts in the Union of Cinematographers of Kazakhstan and the Union of Writers of the Republic. Actively engaged in public activities, leads the chess federation, is the leader of a political party. At the proposal of the President Nursultan Nazarbayev leaves politics and is sent as the Ambassador of the Republic to Italy. Since 2002 he has been the Permanent Representative of Kazakhstan to UNESCO.
In 2007, Russian President Vladimir Putin awarded Olzhas Suleimenov the Order of Friendship.