Oktam Usmonov

Oktam Usmonov was born on 25 July 1938 in the village of Baytqo'rg'on in the Qibray district of the Tashkent region, into a gardener's family. After school he entered the history and philology faculty of the Nizami Tashkent Pedagogical Institute and graduated in 1959.

He began his working life in journalism: in 1959–1972 he was a literary staff member and then head of a department at the newspapers “Lenin uchquni” and “Sovet O'zbekistoni”. His first stories appeared in print in the late 1950s, and his first book, the story collection “Guldasta” (“The Bouquet”), came out in 1964.

In 1972–1982 he held a responsible post in the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan, and in 1983–1986 he was a secretary of the Writers' Union of Uzbekistan. He kept writing throughout these years, publishing “Bahor chaqmoqlari” (“Spring Lightning”, 1970), “Notinch kecha” (“A Restless Night”, 1976) and “Sirli sohil” (“The Mysterious Shore”, 1981).

The central work of his career is the novel “Girdob” (“The Whirlpool”), published in 1979. It portrays the hard lives of the intelligentsia and the struggle between truth and injustice; a video film based on it became widely known among viewers. Usmonov also translated Theodore Dreiser's “An American Tragedy” and Alexander Shirvanzade's novella “Namus” into Uzbek.

From 1987 until his death he was chief editor of the newspaper “Sovet O'zbekistoni”. Oktam Usmonov died on 3 January 1990; his last books include “Kishan” (“Fetters”, 1984) and “Qismat” (“Fate”, 1988).