The Norwegian Nobel Committee has invited Mongolia to submit a qualified nomination for the 2018 Nobel Prize for Literature through a formal letter to the Mongolian Academy of Sciences earlier this month. According to one source, Damdinsurengiin Urainkhai (D.Uriankhai) is a heavy favorite as a candidate for the 2018 Nobel Prize for Literature. He is one of three outstanding writers suggested by the Mongolian Writers’ Union.

Last year, D.Uriankhai became the 1st winner of the Asian Literature Award, selected by the Asia Culture Centre and the Organising Committee of the Asian Literature Festival. D.Uriankhai was born in 1940 in Bulgan province of Mongolia, and became a poet in 1977. He is highly regarded as a poet who has enhanced Mongolian literature through intuition and discernment. He graduated from the Plekhanov State Agricultural Academyof the Soviet Union (now the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics) in 1964 and the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute in 1978.