Erkin Usmonov

Erkin Usmonov was an Uzbek prose writer, translator and journalist. He was born in Tashkent on 10 February 1952.

He came to literature as a teenager, taking his first lessons in the “Young Writers” circle attached to the newspaper Lenin Uchquni (now Tong Yulduzi). In 1967 the paper printed his first science-fiction story, “K. K.”, which won second prize in that year’s To‘yona contest for young authors.

After school he studied at the Tashkent State Institute of Foreign Languages and graduated in 1978. At various times he worked on a building site, at a youth theatre and at the Uzbektelefilm studio, and he did his military service in a cavalry film regiment attached to Mosfilm. For about twenty years he held different posts in the main editorial office of literary and dramatic programmes at Uzbek Radio.

His stories and novellas came out as separate books: Gunafsha (1981), “A Gift from My Son” (1984), “The World Fills with Light” (1987), “If There Is Sorrow in Your Heart”, “Three Pages from a Pillow-Sized Book” (1989), “A World Full of Wonders” (1995) and “In the Qatortol Lands” (2007). A volume of selected works, “The Avenue of Death”, appeared in 2008.

He also worked as a translator, rendering into Uzbek, from Russian and English, works by Karel Čapek, Grin, Paustovsky and Anor. Television and radio plays were made from his stories and novellas, among them “My Dear Mother”, “The Man Who Carried a Load”, “The Gullivers” and “A Woman’s Happiness”.

Usmonov was a member of the Writers’ Union of Uzbekistan and of the Journalists’ Union of Uzbekistan. He died in Tashkent on 4 December 2016.