Akram Aylisli

In February 2014, a formal request was made by various public figures throughout the world to nominate Aylisli for the Nobel Peace Prize - "For courage shown in his efforts to reconcile Azerbaijani and Armenian people". Among the nominators were social science professors and university presidents such as Craig Calhoun and Immanuel Wallerstein from the US, and Theodor Shanin from the UK. They noted that Akram Aylisli was probably the first Turkic author who wrote a book of penitence for the Armenian genocide. "Aylisli was the first to express that pain in a literary work which is very personal, deep and hard-won. <...> Mr Aylisli's actions are important not only for Armenians and Azerbaijanis, but for others all across the former Soviet Union, who have been blinded by ethnic hatred. His example in fact transcends location, ethnicity or political persuasion. His lone resistance, his defiance, his willingness to sacrifice all for the sake of truth, is an encouragement to each of us to be brave. <...> Mr Aylisli is one of those rare people such as Martin Luther King and Andrey Sakharov, whose personal courage and moral impulse can change a nation's fate and destroy the walls dividing nations."

On February 7, 2013, the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev signed a presidential decree that stripped Aylisli of his title "People's Writer" and the personal pension that went with it.

In late 2012 and early 2013, Aylisli found himself embroiled in controversy when his novella, Daş yuxular (Stone Dreams), was published in a Russian-language journal called Druzhba Narodov (Friendship of the Peoples). It covers the pogroms of Armenians in Baku in 1989 and the massacre of Armenians in his native village by Turkish troops in 1919. The scenes of the recent past and the tales of old people about the Armenian massacre intertwined in the novel. The original book was written in 2006 in Azerbaijani language but the author postponed the publication because he did not like the translation into Russian, which later performed by himself. The Original book in Azerbaijani has never been published ever since.

Aylisli was awarded the title of "People's Writer" as well as the highest state awards of Azerbaijan – the medals of "Shokhrat" ("Honor") and "Istiglal" ("Independence"). In November 2005, he was elected to the National Assembly of Azerbaijan (Milli Majlis) as a member of parliament representing his constituency in Julfa-Ordubad. He served for one term, which ended on November 7, 2010.

Aylisli generally is supportive of left wing views. His works published in the Soviet Union did not conform to socialist realism, than some other writers of the Azerbaijan SSR at that time, and he spoke negatively about the Soviet era for a while in 1990s. In one of his recent interviews broadcast on television channel ANS TV he stated that he believes that Karl Marx was a genius, and the world will come to his ideas sooner or later.

Many in Azerbaijan took offense to Aylisli's sympathetic portrayal of Armenians, with whom they fought and lost a six-year-long conflict over control of the region of Nagorno-Karabakh in the early 1990s. The novella stirred resentment by depicting only the Azerbaijani brutality against Armenians during the conflict, while never mentioning incidents of alleged Armenian violence against Azerbaijanis such as the Khojaly massacre.

There are some other controversial aspects to the novel. Shortly after the pogroms in Sumgait at the beginning of March 1988 Sadyghly wants "to go to Echmiadzin in order to convert to Christianity with the blessing of the Armenian Catholicos, stay [there] forever as a monk begging God to forgive Muslims for all the evils which they committed against Armenians." This element to the novel is likely to be deeply frustrating for many Azerbaijani readers, considering the ambiguous role played by the Armenian Catholicos in the events of the late 1980s. Vazgen I did not act to protect the Azerbaijani population of Armenia or to prevent their expulsion, becoming an unpopular figure in Azerbaijan and his name a derogatory one.

From 1968–70, he became the editor-in-chief of "Gençlik", and later worked as a satirist for the journal Mozalan. From 1974–78, he served on the Azerbaijan SSR's State Committee for Cinematography.

Akram Najaf oglu Naibov (Azerbaijani: Əkrəm Nəcəf oğlu Naibov, born December 6, 1937), better known by his pen name Akram Aylisli, is an Azerbaijani writer, playwright, novelist and former member of parliament. His works have been translated from his native Azerbaijani into a number of languages in the former Soviet Union and around the world. He was decorated by the President of Azerbaijan with the prestigious "Istiglal" (2002) and "Shokhrat" orders. In 2013, after the publication of Aylisli's Stone Dreams novella, which depicted the pogroms carried out by Azerbaijanis against the Armenians in Sumgait and Baku and presented Armenians in sympathetic light, President Aliyev signed a presidential decree that stripped Aylisli of the title of "People's Writer" and the presidential pension. His books were burnt by Azerbaijani intelligentsia and compatriots in his hometown, his son and wife were fired from their jobs and a "bounty" of some $13,000 was promised for cutting the writer's ear off. In March 2014, a formal request was made by various public figures throughout the world to nominate Aylisli for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Aylisli was born in the village of Aylis in 1937 in the Ordubad region of the Nakhchivan, part of Soviet Azerbaijan, near the borders of Armenia and Iran. His mother, Leya Ali Kyzy, was the village storyteller, his father died at WWII when Akram was five. His youth in the Soviet Union coincided with one of its more liberal periods: the years of de-Stalinization and the 'Thaw' under the flamboyant leadership of Nikita Khrushchev. Aylisli received his graduate education at the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute in Moscow, the elite school of creative writing for Soviet writers.

Responding to the critics accusing him of being partial, the writer has said: "If I had any doubt that I had disgraced my people that would break me. But they think that when I say two good words about some Armenian I must say three good ones about an Azerbaijani. But it's not my business to keep that foolish balance! In my story I depict a character and his perception of reality. His mind is very fragile; he's on the brink of insanity." Aylisli defended himself in an interview, commenting that "Armenians are not enemies for me....How can they be? I am a writer living in the 21st century. A solution to Nagorno-Karabakh is being delayed, and hostility is growing between the two nations. I want to contribute to a peaceful solution." In answer to accusation of betrayal Aylisli claimed that he is not a patriot: Where have you seen a writer as a patriot? He must write everything his mind and reason tell him to."