At the intersection of literature and politics, there is a feeling of potential, of what could be. Writers, whose craft with language can transport a reader's heart and mind to unimagined realms, work together with politicians, the most adept of whom enthuse their constituents through an admixture of idealism and pragmatism, and so it is that story and image transform – and are transformed by – society. It is such a transformation, earnestly desired and believed in, that lies at the heart of this book.

Mongolia was certainly transformed following its socialist revolution in 1921. Over time, people came to benefit from an education system that focused on basic literacy, a health care system based upon Western science, a political model in which local elected representatives came together to make decisions, and an infrastructure that made these developments more feasible. The revolution also brought political infighting, censorship, arbitrary power exchanges, draconian executions, the near-destruction of religion and the substantial weakening of certain aspects of cultural tradition.

Yet the period with which this book is concerned – from the revolution in the summer of 1921 until the First Writers’ Congress held during the first week of April in 1948 – was for Mongolia a period of sustained literary development, assisted in part through the financial and moral sponsorship of the Soviet Union, which allowed writers for the first time directly to apply themselves for the benefit of their fellow Mongolians.