Vagif Sultanli  Vagif Soltan oglu Verdiyev also known as Vagif Sultanli (born March 26, 1958) is an Azerbaijani literary writer, critic, translator, member of Union of Azerbaijani Writers, Doctor of philological sciences (1997), professor (1999). Vagif Sultanli was born on March 26, 1958 in the village of Shakhsevan in Kurdamir. He graduated from the village school of Kohnabazar in 1974. During his studies in high school, he also studied at the Kurdamir District Music School from 1970 to 1975. In 1974–1976 he worked at electricity network of Kurdamir region. He graduated from the Faculty of Philology of the Azerbaijan State University with honors in 1981. He began his career as language and literature teacher in the village of Kaladzhyk, Ismayilli. Then he continued his postgraduate studies at the Department of Contemporary Azerbaijan Literature at Azerbaijan State University. In 1984 he defended his thesis on "The Problem of Character in Azerbaijani Drama (1970-1980)". He worked as a teacher, senior lecturer and associate professor at Baku State University from 1984 to 1991. From 1999 he has worked at the Department of History of Azerbaijani Literature of the university. He defended his doctoral thesis on "The Life and Literary Activity of Mahammad Amin Rasulzade" in 1997. He has been consistently engaged in public activities. He founded the World Association of Azerbaijani Studies and was elected its chairman in 1991. In 1995–1998 Vagif Sultanli worked as correspondent for literary broadcasts in the Azerbaijani editorial office of American radio stations "Radio Free Europe" and "Radio Liberty". He was the editor-in-chief of publications published in Poland ("Khudaferin" - 1995), Sweden ("Araz" - 1996-1997), and the United States ("World Azerbaijanis" - 2000-2012). Vagif Sultanli is the head of the Caucasus Bureau of the Cyprus-Balkans-Eurasia Turkish Literature Organization (Turkey). He was awarded the H. Zardabi Award (1995), the International Turkish Language Service Award of the Cyprus-Balkans and Eurasia Turkish Literature Organization (KIBATEK) (2003) and the Honorary Decree of the Ministry of Culture of Egypt (2014). He was elected a board member of the World Azerbaijanis Congress (WAC) at the conventions held in Sweden (2001), the Netherlands (2002), Germany (2004), Belgium (2008) and the United Kingdom (2010).