Sharifa Salimova

Sharifa Salimova was born on 30 December 1951 in the Parkent district of the Tashkent region. She attended school in 1958–1968 and studied in 1969–1974 at the faculty of journalism of Tashkent State University (today the National University of Uzbekistan).

After graduating she joined the “Vatandosh” radio station of the Uzbek State Committee for Television and Radio, first as an editor and then as head of a department, and worked there until 1987. In 1989–1994 she headed a department at the weekly “O’zbekiston adabiyoti va san’ati” and at the magazine “Saodat”; her journalistic articles on the pressing problems of society appeared in those years.

She entered literature in the late 1970s: her first book, “The Joy of Life”, came out in 1978, followed by the collection “My Spring”. Milestones of her work include “The Spring of Khizr” (1996), written for the 550th anniversary of Alisher Navoi, “The Person Who Talked with Herbs” (1997), the collection of essays “Oath to the Dawn” (2002) and “Image of the Homeland” (2011). She translated Russian, Kazakh and Kyrgyz poets into Uzbek and published the poems of the German Islamic scholar and poet Hadayatullah Hübsch as “White Rose”.

A number of songs were written to her verses, some of them performed by Yulduz Usmonova.

Salimova also served in public office: in 1998–2000 as a senior consultant in the Office of the President, and in 2000–2009 as a member of the Oliy Majlis, taking part in parliamentary committees, among them the commission on family and women’s issues.

She was named Honoured Worker of Culture of Uzbekistan in 1994 and received the Order of Labor Glory (“Mehnat shuhrati”) in 2018. On 28 May 2026 she was given the title People’s Poet of Uzbekistan. Sharifa Salimova died on 5 August 2026, aged 74.