Barot Boyqobilov

Barot Tillayevich Boyqobilov was born on 14 March 1937 in the village of Kenagas in the Urgut district of the Samarkand region. In 1962 he graduated from the philology faculty of Samarkand State University.

He began working in publishing and the press: in 1962–1963 at the Uzbek State Publishing House of Fiction, in 1963–1968 at a youth newspaper, and in 1968–1974 at the children's literature publishing house, where he was an editor, head of a department and deputy editor-in-chief. From 1974 to 1990 he served in Party and government bodies, and from 1991 he was editor-in-chief of the magazine Muloqot (“Dialogue”).

His first collection of poems, “Lines of Samarkand”, appeared in 1962. It was followed by “Reunion” (1965), “I Am Looking for You” (1968), “Samarkand Ushshaq” (1969), “Afrasiab” (1970), “Who Lives Quietly in Uzbekistan” (1990) and other books, as well as several dastans. His poetic tale “Day and Night” (1968) was the first work of Uzbek literature to give Babur an artistic image.

Boyqobilov contributed substantially to the development of the sonnet in Uzbek poetry and translated sonnets by Petrarch, Shakespeare, Neruda and Rasul Gamzatov into Uzbek.

A large part of his work is devoted to the life and legacy of Alisher Navoi: the dastans “A Majestic Caravan” (1981), “Restless Khorasan” (1985), “Quiet Khorasan” and “Bloody Khorasan” (both 1992), and the verse novel “Hayrat ul-Abror” (1997). On their basis he later produced the “New Khamsa” of five dastans (1998) and the verse novel “Uzbeknoma” (1999).

In 1994 he received the Alisher Navoi State Prize of the Republic of Uzbekistan, and in 1997 he was given the title People's Poet of Uzbekistan. Barot Boyqobilov died in 2006.