University of Cambridge representative awarded with Dostyk Order

LONDON, 30 September 2020 – Jane Mann, Managing Director of Cambridge Partnership for Education at Cambridge University Press (CUP), was awarded the II Class Dostyk Order. The order was awarded by the Decree of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev for her significant contribution to strengthening friendly relations between Kazakhstan and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, as well as for her contribution to promoting the heritage of the great Kazakh poet, philosopher and enlightener Abai Kunanbaiuly.

Under Ms Mann’s management, the CUP is currently implementing a unique project to publish the first English-language complete works of Abai. Within the project carried out in partnership with the National Bureau of Translations (NBT), the famous British poet Sean O’Brien is working on the translation of Abai’s poetry, while the translation of the Words of Edification is done by the famous Scottish writer and poet John Burnside. The English-language edition is part of a wider project by NBT to publish the works of the legendary Kazakh poet in ten languages worldwide.

Presenting the award, Erlan Idrissov, the Ambassador of Kazakhstan to the UK, noted the significant contribution Ms Mann and Cambridge University Press have made to promoting the heritage of the great Abai among the English-speaking audiences, while also supporting the mutual rapprochement of the two nations’ cultures. For many years, the University of Cambridge has been successfully cooperating with the Nazarbayev University and Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools to develop the education system in Kazakhstan. In 2019, as part of the Rukhani Zhangyru programme, the CUP, in partnership with the NBT, published the first two-volume anthology of contemporary Kazakh literature (poetry and prose) in English, which was delivered to leading universities and libraries around the world.

Ms Mann stressed that Cambridge’s contribution today is to continue to pursue Abai’s goal of enriching the Kazakh literary tradition by translating his own works, so that the English-speaking audience can appreciate his works for the first time.

“Receiving the Dostyk award is a huge privilege and a huge honour personally, but also for the team at Cambridge. It is a lovely marker of the friendship between Kazakhstan and Cambridge, the work that we have done together and the initiatives that we have undertaken together. And for it to be recognised in this way is wonderful,” she added.