Mirzo Kenjabek

Mirzo Kenjabek (real name Mirza Kenjaboyev) was born on 20 February 1956 in the village of Mehnat in the Sariosiyo district of the Surkhandarya region. One source describes the district as “now Uzun district”. He attended school in 1963–1973.

In 1974–1979 he studied at the Faculty of Journalism of Tashkent State University (now the National University of Uzbekistan). His first poetry collection, “Adashgan maktublarim” (“My Lost Letters”), appeared in 1982, and from the same year he has been a member of the Writers’ Union of Uzbekistan. It was followed by “Quyoshga qaragan uy” (1983), “Munojot” (1986), “Sharq tili” (1988) and “Bahorim yellari” (1991).

In the late 1980s the themes of freedom and the native language grew stronger in his writing; poems and articles such as “Til erki — el erki” (“The Freedom of Language Is the Freedom of the Nation”) and “Xalq nomidan yolg‘on so‘zlamang” (“Do Not Lie in the People’s Name”) date from that time. In 1989 he sat on the commission that considered the draft law on the state language; by his own account, given in 2019, he was the only member who objected to defining Russian as the language of inter-ethnic communication.

Kenjabek is also known as a translator. Into Uzbek he rendered the ghazals of Hafez and Saadi of Shiraz, poems by Nicolás Guillén, Gevorg Emin, Yakub Kolas, Sherali Loiq and Olzhas Suleimenov, Pushkin’s verse novel “Eugene Onegin” and Makhtumkuli’s “Saylanma” (2004).

Islamic and Sufi literature is the second large strand of his work. He translated Farid ud-Din Attar’s “Tazkirat al-Awliya” (1997), Usman al-Ushi’s poem “Amali” (1999) and the “Sunan al-Tirmidhi” collection (first edition 1999); in 1998–2001 he studied at the Imam al-Bukhari Tashkent Islamic Institute. His book on the scholars and saints of Termez, “Termiz tazkirasi”, appeared in 2001.

In 2024 the Islamic Civilization Center in Uzbekistan published his translation “Anvarul-Qur’an: Fayzul-Furqan”. It is presented as the seventh complete translation of the meanings of the Quran into Uzbek and draws on the translation and commentary of Professor Hasan Tahsin.