Murodjon Mansurov

Murodjon Mansurov (who also signed his work Murod Mansur) was an Uzbek writer, the author of more than ten novellas and novels. He was born in 1941 in Tashkent, into a gardener’s family in the Qatortol neighbourhood on the slope of the Cho‘lpon-ota hill.

His father, Mansurkhoja Turakhoja ugli, was a gardener and died while his son was still a child; Murodjon was brought up by his mother, Karomatkhon Umarkhoja qizi. After school he studied at the construction faculty of the Tashkent Polytechnic Institute and worked as a design engineer.

In those years he began writing sketches and short stories. His first piece, “Aziz inson” (“A Dear Person”, 1963), about his mother, remained unpublished. The newspaper Qizil O‘zbekiston (now O‘zbekiston ovozi) noticed his writing and invited him to join its staff, and he became its correspondent for the Fergana region. He later served as deputy editor-in-chief of the magazine Yoshlik and then worked at the magazine Sharq yulduzi.

He came into literature in the 1960s. His novellas include “Sadarayhon” (1965), “Umr chorrahalari” (1972), “Qirg‘oqlar” (1975), “Hammaning yashagisi keladi” (1980) and “Yombi” (1988); in 1989 Sharq yulduzi published his novella “Alomat odam”.

The novel “Mangu jang” appeared in Sharq yulduzi in 1984 (issues 8–9) and as a separate book in 1985. “Gunohi azim” was serialised in the same magazine in 1991 (issues 9–11) and published as a book in 1995. “Judolik diyori” began to appear in Sharq yulduzi in 1993; the edition in three books dates from 2001–2003 and describes the life of a people who have lost their homeland and wander far from it.

Murodjon Mansurov died in Tashkent in 2014.