Mirmuhsin

Mirmuhsin (real name Mirmuhsin Mirsaidov) was born on 3 May 1921 in Tashkent into a poor potter's family. In 1941 he graduated from the philology faculty of the Nizami Tashkent Pedagogical Institute. He began working as a school teacher of Uzbek language and literature, then worked in the editorial offices of newspapers and magazines and at the Writers' Union of Uzbekistan.

He started writing verse in 1936, and his first books, the collections “Vatan” (“Homeland”) and “Er yurak”, appeared in 1942. After the war he wrote poems about the labour of cotton growers, “Usta G‘iyos” (1947) and “Yashil qishloq” (“The Green Village”, 1948); the poems “Qadrdonlar” and “Shiroq” and the verse novel “Ziyod and Adiba” followed later.

In the following decades he turned increasingly to prose: the novels “Chiniqish” (“Tempering”, 1964) on contemporary life, “Degrez o‘g‘li” (“The Foundryman's Son”, 1972) about a family of workers, and “Chotqol yo‘lbarsi” (“The Tiger of Chatkal”, 1977), as well as the historical novels “The Architect” (1974) and “Temur Malik” (1985). He published more than ten books for children and translated verse by Pushkin, Shevchenko and Mayakovsky into Uzbek.

He was editor-in-chief of the magazine “Sharq yulduzi” in 1950–1960 and again from 1971; according to the sources, he led that magazine for about twenty years in all and the satirical magazine “Mushtum” for about ten. He also worked with the magazine “Guliston”.

In 1968 he was named Honoured Worker of Culture of the Uzbek SSR, in 1974 he received the Hamza State Prize of the Uzbek SSR, and in 1981 he was given the title People's Writer of the Uzbek SSR. In 1998 he was awarded the Order “El-yurt hurmati”.

He kept writing after independence: the novels “Ilon o‘chi” (“The Serpent's Revenge”, 1995) and “Turon malikasi” (“The Queen of Turan”, 1998) date from those years. A three-volume (1971–1973) and a four-volume (1981–1984) edition of his works were published. Mirmuhsin died in Tashkent on 3 February 2005.