Elchin Afandiyev
Politician
Azerbaijani politician who became his country's Deputy Prime Minister in 1993. Also an acclaimed writer, he published more than one hundred novels that were subsequently translated into over twenty languages.
In his mid-teens, he published his first work of fiction in the Azerbaijani Youth magazine.
He earned degrees in philology from Baku State University and the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences.
He was born into a literary family: his father, Ilyas Afandiyev, was a renowned playwright and novelist.
In 2003, Azerbaijani President Heydar Aliyev presented Afandiyev with the prestigious Istiglal Order.