Danzangiin Nyamsüren (1949-2002) was one of Yavuuhulan's three principal students. Unlike both Mend-Ooyo (coming tomorrow) and Dashbalbar (coming Wednesday), Nyamsüren preferred to keep out of the spotlight, spending much of his adult life living and working in the small town of Ereentsav, on the Russian border, where his wife Handmaa worked (and still works) as an immigration official at the railway crossing. In his essay "Warmth," the journalist B Zolbayar wrote an account of a visit he made to Handmaa in Ereentsav following Nyamsüren's death (download my translation below).
Nyamsüren was influenced primarily by the atmosphere of Yavuuhulan's work, his intimate relationship with the landscape and with the natural world. In one of Nyamsüren's most famous poems, "The Four Seasons" (not reproduced in the text available below for download), Nyamsüren offers a long litany of praise for nature and for the area where he lives: each line describes one aspect of this area as "lovely," it is like a mantra almost, an enchantment.
Nyamsüren published three books during his life - Spring's Flow (1984), The Nature of Mind (1991) and From the Lonely Steppe (2001). This year, which would have marked Nyamsüren's 60th birthday, Mend-Ooyo's Mongolian Academy of Poetry and Culture will reissue these books, in addition to my translations in a one-volume edition. According to Handmaa, two further volumes remain unpublished, and I am trying to secure these texts for inclusion or, at least, for later publication.
Tomorrow: G Mend-Ooyo
Find Simon's previous posts about Mongolian literature here.
