Ne'mat Aminov

Ne'mat Aminov was born on 17 July 1937 in the village of Pitmon in the Romitan district of the Bukhara region, into a blacksmith’s family. From 1954 to 1959 he studied at the faculty of history and philology of the Fayzulla Khojayev Pedagogical Institute in Bukhara.

He began his working life in radio: in 1961–1973 he was an editor and then editor-in-chief at the Bukhara regional radio broadcasting committee. His first collection of humorous stories, “A Two-Penny Reputation” (“Ikki pullik obro‘”), came out in 1966.

In 1973 he moved to Tashkent and joined the satirical magazine “Mushtum”, first as executive secretary and then as editor-in-chief, and he stayed there until 1995. In 1989–1991 he was deputy editor-in-chief of the magazine “Sharq yulduzi”, and in 1995–1999 he headed the republican public centre “Spirituality and Enlightenment”.

Aminov wrote satirical and humorous stories and novellas. His collections include “The Forty-Third Brother-in-Law” (1970), “The Laughter of Lyabi-Hauz” (1973), “The Song of the Plane Trees” (1984), “The Shoulderless Wrestler” (1986), “The Thief Kitten” (1987), “Laughter” (1987), “Yallama-yorim” (1988) and “Tales of Cholbola” (1990). In 1976–1983 he wrote the comic novel “The Lying Angels”, developed from his novellas “Yelvizak” and “Suvarak”; the folk spirit of his writing shows most clearly in “A Century’s Tale” (1996). His stories have been translated into a number of foreign languages.

He was given the title People’s Writer of Uzbekistan in 1992 and the Order of Labor Glory in 1999. Ne'mat Aminov died in Tashkent on 18 October 2005; in 2021 he was posthumously awarded the Order “For Selfless Service”.