Mirgul Kali translates from her native Kazakh. Her translations of short stories by classic and contemporary Kazakh writers have appeared in Tupelo Quarterly, Electric Literature, Exchanges, The Massachusetts Review, Gulf Coast, and other publications. She is a recipient of the 2018-2019 American Literary Translators Association's Emerging Translator Mentorship. In 2022 she was awarded a PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant for her translation of Baqytgul Sarmekova’s To Hell with Poets, a short story collection forthcoming from Tilted Axis Press in 2024. Currently she is an MFA candidate in Literary Translation at the University of Iowa.
TRANSLATIONS
To Hell with Poets, a short story collection by Baqytgul Sarmekova, Tilted Axis Press (forthcoming Fall 2023).
"My Skin Drifts Away," a short story by Merey Kossyn, Apofenie, February 2023.
“Fire,” an excerpt from Mukhtar Magauin’s novel Kokbalaq, Massachusetts Review, Summer 2020.
“A Book in the Mirror,” a short story by Saghadat Ordasheva, Exchanges: Journal of Literary Translation, December 2019.
“Careless Mind,” short story by Askhat Omirbayev, Bosphorus Review of Books, January 2019.
“The Notes of a Writer,” a short story by Almaz Myrzakhmet, Asymptote, July 2018.
“The Archivist,” a short story by Mukhtar Magauin, Electric Literature, December 2018.
“The Quenching of Bakapai’s Thirst,” a short story by Almaz Myrzakhmet, Tupelo Quarterly, February 2018.
TRANSLATION REVIEWS
"Filling the Space and Hiding Within," a review of Amanat: Women’s Writing from Kazakhstan, Hopscotch Translation, July 2022.