The Blue Sky

Galsan Tschinag was born in western Mongolia, the youngest son of a nomad family, he is patriarch of the Tuvans, a Turkic-speaking ethnic minority in Mongolia. In his home country, his name is Irgit Schynykbaioglu Dshurukuwaa. Tschinag studied German in Leipzig and has been writing in German since then. He has been making his livelihood as a freelance writer since 1991, living mainly in Ulan Bator, but he also spends many months on the road with his tribe in the Altai Mountains. Galsan Tschinag sees himself as an intermediary between cultures and spends a great deal of his time on reading tours abroad. He was awarded the Heimito von Doderer Prize in 2001.