Akram Najaf oglu Naibov (, born December 6, 1937), better known by his pen name Akram Aylisli (), is an Azerbaijani writer, playwright, novelist and former member of parliament. "Üçüncü çağırış Azərbaycan Respublikası Milli Məclisinin deputatları haqqında seçildikləri tarixə olan qısa MƏLUMATLAR." Meclis.gov.az. His works have been translated from his native Azerbaijani into a number of languages in the former Soviet Union and around the world. "Akram Aylisli," in Azerbaycan XX.yy Yakın Dönem Türk Edebiyatı. Accessed February 2, 2013. He was decorated by the President of Azerbaijan with the prestigious "Istiglal" (2002) and "Shokhrat" orders. In 2013, after the publication of Aylisli's Stone Dreams novella, which depicted the pogroms carried out by Azerbaijanis against the Armenians in Sumgait and Baku and presented Armenians in sympathetic light, President Aliyev signed a presidential decree that stripped Aylisli of the title of "People's Writer" and the presidential pension."Azerbaijani President signs orders to deprive Akram Aylisli of presidential pension and honorary title ." Trend.az. February 7, 2013. Retrieved February 7, 2013. His books were burnt by Azerbaijani intelligentsia and compatriots in his hometown, his son and wife were fired from their jobs and a "bounty" of some $13,000 was promised for cutting the writer's ear off. In March 2014, a formal request was made by various public figures throughout the world to nominate Aylisli for the Nobel Peace Prize.
In the summer 2026, Aylisli won the 2026 EBRD Literature Prize for "People and Trees, a Trilogy". The award was accepted by Katherine E Young on behalf of the author. In commenting on the award, literary critic Maya Jaggi said that Aylisli's "fraught life as much as his courageous works reflects the challenges facing his country", and also highlighted that he had "described himself humbly as a ‘writer and humanist with the ability to feel pity for another’s pain’."
Biography Aylisli was born in the village of Aylis in 1937 in the Ordubad region of the Nakhchivan, part of Soviet Azerbaijan, near the borders of Armenia and Iran. His mother, Leya Ali Kyzy, was the village storyteller, his father died in WWII when Akram was five. His youth in the Soviet Union coincided with one of its more liberal periods: the years of de-Stalinization and the 'Thaw' under the flamboyant leadership of Nikita Khrushchev. Aylisli received his graduate education at the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute in Moscow, the elite school of creative writing for Soviet writers.
His first work, a poem entitled "Qeşem ve onun Kürekeni", was published in the journal Azerbaycan. During Soviet times, Aylisli was a poet, translator, and playwright, and he authored a number of novels: "Trees without Shade", "Shining of the six suns", "The season of colorful dresses", "The white canyon", "The dam", "Peoples and Trees" and others. Most of Aylisli's works are associated with this native village. Aylisli's stories and novels, so subtle and full of affection for peasant life, are very popular in Azerbaijan and the Soviet Union. His novel "Peoples and Trees" has been translated into more than thirty languages and published beyond Soviet borders in the countries of Eastern Europe. Сonceptually and personally, Aylisli was close to the Russian "Village Prose" movement.
Aylisli was also the author of a number of dramas and plays, including "Quşu Uçan Budaqlar", "Menim Neğmekar Bibim", "Bağdada Putyovka Var", and "Vezife", which were staged and shown in theaters in Baku, Nakhchivan, Ganja, and Yerevan. Moreover, Aylisli worked as a translator. He translated into Azeri the books by Gabriel García Márquez, Heinrich Böll, Ivan Turgenev, Konstantin Paustovsky, Vladimir Korolenko, Anton Chekhov, Vasily Shukshin, Chinghiz Aitmatov, Salman Rushdie.
From 1968 to 1970, he became the editor-in-chief of "Gençlik", and later worked as a satirist for the journal Mozalan. From 1974 to 1978, he served on the Azerbaijan SSR's State Committee for Cinematography.
Aylisli was awarded the title of "People's Writer" as well as the highest state awards of Azerbaijan – the medals of "Shokhrat" ("Honor") and "Istiglal" ("Independence"). In November 2005, he was elected to the National Assembly of Azerbaijan (Milli Majlis) as a member of parliament representing his constituency in Julfa-Ordubad. He served for one term, which ended on November 7, 2010.
Aylisli is generally supportive of left wing views. His works published in the Soviet Union did not conform to socialist realism, than some other writers of the Azerbaijan SSR at that time, and he spoke negatively about the Soviet era for a while in the 1990s. In one of his recent interviews broadcast on television channel ANS TV he stated that he believes that Karl Marx was a genius, and the world will come to his ideas sooner or later.
Stone Dreams controversy In late 2012 and early 2013, Aylisli found himself embroiled in controversy when his novella, Daş yuxular (Stone Dreams), was published in a Russian-language journal Druzhba Narodov (Friendship of the Peoples). It covers the pogroms of Armenians in Baku in 1989 and the massacre of Armenians in his native village by Turkish troops in 1919. The scenes of the recent past and the tales of old people about the Armenian massacre intertwined in the novel. The original book was written in 2006 in Azerbaijani language, but the author postponed the publication because he did not like the translation into Russian, which later performed by himself. The Original book in Azerbaijani has never been published ever since.
Plot The novel tells the story of the Azerbaijani actor Saday Sadykhly and his efforts to protect his Armenian neighbors during the Sumgait and Baku Pogroms in the closing years of the Soviet Union. "Azeri yazarın ezber bozan Ermeni çıkışı." Enson Haber. February 4, 2013. Retrieved February 4, 2013. The novel begins as the severely beaten Sadykhly is being transported to the hospital: while trying to protect his Armenian neighbor he was also assaulted by the yeraz [Azeri refugees from Armenia] on the streets of Baku, who mistook him too for an Armenian.
There are four main characters in the novel. Sadai Sadykhly, his friend Nunavrish Karabahly, also an actor, Sadykhly's father-in-law Professor of psychiatry, Dr. Abbasaliev and a surgeon in the hospital where Sadykhly was taken right after assault, Dr. Farid Farzaneh. Although it looks like that Sadykhly was recovering at the beginning, by the end his body couldn't sustain the physical injuries or the nervous pressure, and so he died.
Accusations
Many in Azerbaijan took offense to Aylisli's sympathetic portrayal of Armenians, with whom they were at war with over control of the region of Nagorno-Karabakh in the early 1990s. The novella stirred resentment by depicting only the Azerbaijani brutality against Armenians during the conflict, while never mentioning incidents of alleged Armenian violence against Azerbaijanis, such as the Khojaly massacre.
There are some other controversial aspects to the novel. Shortly after the pogroms in Sumgait at the beginning of March 1988 Sadyghly wants "to go to Echmiadzin in order to convert to Christianity with the blessing of the Armenian Catholicos, stay [there] forever as a monk begging God to forgive Muslims for all the evils which they committed against Armenians." This element to the novel is likely to be deeply frustrating for many Azerbaijani readers, considering the ambiguous role played by the Armenian Catholicos in the events of the late 1980s. Vazgen I did not act to protect the Azerbaijani population of Armenia or to prevent their expulsion, becoming an unpopular figure in Azerbaijan and his name a derogatory one.The Stone Dreams scandal: the Nagorny Karabakh conflict and Armenian-Azerbaijani relations in contemporary literature . http://www.caucasus-survey.org/ .
Another sensitive taboo seemingly questioned by Aylisli is the significance of circumcision—a ritual sacred to every practicing Muslim. Dr. Farzani, who is married to a Russian woman, wants to have their son circumcised. But his wife asks Farzani whether the Prophet is wiser than God. Ultimately, their son comes to see circumcision as an act of violence on his body, and this reaction eventually breaks Farzani's family apart. Such a controversial portrayal of a concept as sacred as circumcision is likely to prove very irritating for some Azerbaijani readers.
Harassment campaign Soon after Stone Dreams was published, the honored writer became an enemy of the state. Mass media launched a wide-scale bullying campaign.
In Baku, Ganja, and in the writer's native village, rallies were organized where people cried out slogans such as "Death to Akram Aylisli!", "Traitor!", "Why have you sold yourself out to the Armenians?", "Akram is Armenian!", and they set his books and portraits on fire.Sultanova, Aida and Peter Leonard. "Azerbaijani writer punished for pitying Armenians." Businessweek. February 8, 2013. Retrieved February 8, 2013.Sultanova, Shahla, "Novella's Sympathetic Portrayal of Armenians Causes Uproar in Azerbaijan". The New York Times. February 1, 2013. Retrieved February 2, 2013. Youth Organization of Refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh announced their and other NGOs dealing with the affairs of veterans, refugees and IDPs' intention to take legal action against Aylisli."A group of NGOs to sue Akram Aylisli" . APA. February 6, 2013. Retrieved February 7, 2013.
On February 7, 2013, the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev signed a presidential decree that stripped Aylisli of his title "People's Writer" and the personal pension that went with it.Распоряжение Президента Азербайджанской Республики о лишении Акрама Айлисли (Акрама Наджаф оглу Наибова) персональной пенсии Президента Азербайджанской Республики. Официальный сайт Президента Азербайджанской Республики
Ali Hasanov, Head of the Azerbaijani Presidential Administration's Social and Political Department, denounced him for purportedly having no national spirit or sense of humanity, for disrespecting the memory of those who died during the war, and for posing as a defender of human values. He added that Aylisli represents Armenian youth who killed thousands of Azerbaijanis, and took control over Azerbaijani lands and committed the massacre in Khojaly, but that he represents Azerbaijanis as murderers and weak personalities. He further added that as Azerbaijanis, they "must express public hatred towards these people.""Top Official: Writer Akram Aylisli disrespects memory of thousands of martyrs ." Trend.az. February 6, 2013. Retrieved February 7, 2013.
Parliamentarians of the National Assembly during the special session required to deprive Aylisli of all state awards, and his Azerbaijani citizenship, and insisted that he move to Armenia. Parliamentarians commented that the novella "insulted not only Azerbaijanis, but the whole Turkish nation," on account of references to the Ottoman Empire's historical persecution of Armenians. They suggested that Aylisli have DNA tested to determine if he was genetically ethnic Armenian. The Chairmen of the National Assembly Ogtay Asadov stated "There is something suspicious in the blood of everybody who supports Aylisli".В Азербайджане устроили травлю писателя, осудившего армянские погромы. Бакинские политики требуют проверить его «генетический код» // NewDayNews.Ru. 06.02.13