Salim Ashur

Salim Ashur (Ashurov) was born on 16 December 1964 in the Qurghonteppa district of the Qurghonteppa region of the Tajik SSR, into a peasant family. His parents soon moved to the Qiziriq district of Uzbekistan's Surxondaryo region, where he spent his childhood and youth. He published his first poems in a district newspaper while still in the sixth grade and made his debut in the republican press in 1979, in the magazine “Gulxan”.

After finishing school in 1982 he entered the journalism faculty of Tashkent State University, graduating in 1989. He worked at the magazine “Saodat” in 1990–1994 and at the newspaper “O'zbekiston ovozi” in 1994–1996, and later served as editor-in-chief of the newspaper “Turkiston”.

His first collection, “Yashil giyoh” (“Green Grass”), appeared in 1994, the same year as “Atirgul” (“The Rose”). They were followed by “Siz ertaga kelasiz” (“You Will Come Tomorrow”, 1999), “Kechikkan tong” (“The Belated Dawn”, 2002), “Atalgan kunlar” (“The Appointed Days”, 2004) and “Darz” (“The Crack”, 2006).

Ashur is also known as a translator: into Uzbek he has rendered poems by Alexander Blok, Ivan Bunin and Afanasy Fet, and stories and novellas by Jean-Paul Sartre and Konstantin Paustovsky.

In 2012 he was given the title Honoured Journalist of Uzbekistan. He has worked in the Presidential Administration of Uzbekistan since 2014; in October 2018 he was appointed head of its department for the development of the media, television and the press, and in October 2019 he became editor-in-chief of the newspaper “O'zbekiston adabiyoti va san'ati”.