Miraziz Azam

Miraziz Azam was born in Tashkent on 29 March 1936. He graduated from Tashkent State University (now the National University of Uzbekistan) in 1958 and began writing poetry while still a student.

After university he worked as an editor at the Tashkent television studio, at the children’s magazine “Guncha” and at the Yosh Gvardiya and Ghafur Ghulam publishing houses. For many years he served the Writers’ Union of Uzbekistan as an adviser and as an assistant to the executive secretary.

His first poem, “A Strange Dream”, was printed in 1960 and came out as a separate book for children in 1972. His first collection, “Metallurg” (“The Metallurgist”), appeared in 1964. For children he wrote “Clever Children” (1969), “What Happened to You” (1970), “The Earth Turns” (1973), “A Pocketful of Walnuts” (1990) and other books, in which the world, good and evil are explored through a child’s eyes and honest work is valued. For adults he published the collections “I Love” (1977), “Feelings” (1980) and “Steadfastness” (1983); his best poems were gathered in the selection “The Eyes of Truth” (1988). In 2005 he wrote a six-part film narrative, “Imon” (“Faith”).

He also worked as an essayist and wrote articles on preserving the literary heritage. In 2019 a book of his conversations, memories and essays appeared, about nearly thirty figures of literature and the arts, among them Ghafur Ghulam, Oybek, Mirtemir, Shaykhzoda and Odil Yoqubov.

As a translator he worked from Turkish, Russian and German. He translated poems by Nâzım Hikmet, compiled and largely translated Mayakovsky’s book “White and Black”, and in 2007 published an excerpt from Orhan Pamuk’s “Istanbul” in the newspaper “Maʼrifat”. For translating Murod Oʻroz’s “Turkic Legends” he received the international Mahmud Kashgari prize in 1993; in December of that year the Writers’ Union of Turkey declared him its symbol in Uzbekistan. In 2007, at a Turkic poetry festival in Skopje, North Macedonia, he was given the Mawlana Jalal ad-Din Rumi prize.

By a presidential decree of 26 August 2023 he was awarded the Order “Doʻstlik”. In spring 2026, for his 90th birthday, leaders of the Writers’ Union visited him at home.