Gabit Musirepov was born on 22 March 1902 in a village located in Kostanay region, then belonging to the Russian Empire. Between 1923 and 1926, he studied at the Faculty of Workers in Orenburg, and then at the agroeconomic institute at Omsk. He started his literary career in 1925, writing his first story, To the Abyss (В пучине) in 1928, about events that occurred during the Russian Civil War, 1918–1920. In 1928, he collaborated at the literary journal Jana-Adabiet (Жана-Адабиет). Among his works stand out Kyz-Zhibek (Қыз Жібек), the first libretto to a Kazakh opera, with music by Yevgeny Brusilovsky, and Poet's Tragedy (Трагедия поэта), written in 1958 (first version titled Ақан сері Ақтоқты, 1942), that dealt with the tragedy of Ajani, a Kazakh singer and composer of the 19th century.
