“...this is less a conversation about equality, — something we still have a long way to grow into— but more about a learned helplessness, when women no longer need men's active participation in order to oppress themselves. The novel is about the pursuit of freedom, about the thirst for freedom. And about the possibility of attaining it.” 

(Levin, 2025, p.9)

The female voices have historically been historically marginalized in Kazakh society. Shaped by the restrictive cultural norms, women’s experiences were silenced and heavily underrepresented, rarely being articulated in public society. However, over the last 30 years, Kazakh literature has been witnessing a growing body of feminist writing, which explores female identity and subjectivity. These stories offer an opportunity to reinterpret Kazakh culture. Yet, there are still questions regarding its translation: to what extent are these stories properly translated, and how do specific translation strategies impact the narrative, context, and original meaning? 

The proposed research’s aim lies in the examination of the feminist translation strategies’ impact on contemporary feminist novels written by Kazakh female authors, reviewing its influence on the work’s narratives, female portrayal, and cultural contexts.

The proposed research reviews the translation as a feminist, political and cultural practice. The project is grounded in the feminist translation theory, incorporating the feminist critical discourse analysis and postcolonial critique. The study foregrounds the gendered literary narratives, in the genres of fiction and autofiction emerging from the post-socialist and Central Asian contexts. It is grounded in close engagement with contemporary feminist literary narratives from Kazakhstan, including translated literary works such as Amanat: Women’s Writing from Kazakhstan, and contemporary fiction novels such as Altynay Sultan's Otslojka and Kamila Kovyazina’s Five Years and Solo Aygul.

In terms of the methodology, the research examines how feminist translation strategies — supplementation, equivalence, contextualization, modulation and addition—are able to distort the meaning, challenge the narrative, critique the patriarchal and colonial logics. The study incorporates storytelling and various narrative forms produced by women and gender-marginalized authors, in order to review the silenced experiences and translation nuances when translating these moments. Therefore, the project seeks to invite discussions on translation’s ability of challenging and reshaping dominant gender narratives and address culturally embedded misconceptions.

Levin, A. (2025) Preface. In Kovyazina, K. (2025). Solo Aygul. Kovyazina, book.