Sharof Boshbekov

Sharof Boshbekov was born on 4 January 1951 in the village of Gubir in the Bulungur district of the Samarkand region. In 1974 he graduated from the musical-acting department of the Tashkent institute of arts and began on the stage, working as an actor at the Muqimiy Musical Theatre in Tashkent and at a theatre in Guliston.

He came to writing in 1980 with the play “Taqdir eshigi” (“The Door of Fate”). It was followed by the stories “G varianti” (1981), “G'urur” (“Pride”, 1982) and “Jumboq” (“The Riddle”, 1986), the drama “Tushov uzgan tulporlar” (“Stallions That Broke Their Hobbles”, 1983) and the comedy “Eshik qoqqan kim?” (“Who Knocked at the Door?”, 1987). In 1983–1985 he was a literary consultant at the Writers’ Union of Uzbekistan, and in 1986–1987 at the Uzbek National Academic Drama Theatre.

His most widely staged work is the comedy “Temir xotin” (“Iron Woman”, 1989). It first won the grand prix of the republican theatre festival and was then named the winner of a festival of theatres of the Central Asian countries; a feature film and an operetta were made from it. For it he received the Maqsud Shaykhzoda annual prize of the Writers’ Union in 1989 and the Hamza State Prize of the Uzbek SSR in 1990.

Boshbekov also wrote for film and television. Films made from his scripts include “Ma’ruf va Sharif”, “Yuzsiz” (1993) and “Tilla bola” (“The Golden Boy”, 1994); on “Masxaraboz” (“The Jester”, 1996) and “Farhod va Shirin” he was both screenwriter and director. The script of the television series “Charxpalak” is credited to him. On stage he had “Tentak farishtalar” (“Crazy Angels”, 1995), “Zo'rdan zo'r chiqsa” (1996) and “Eski shahar gavroshlari” (“The Urchins of the Old City”, 1998).

In the years of independence he wrote the scripts of two telefilms (2002 and 2004) and the film novellas “So'qmoq” (2003) and “Mehr va mauzer” (2007). The books “Falakning gardishi” and “Musofir bo'lmaguncha” (both 2009), “Tentak farishta” (2010) and “Charxpalak” (2017) were published, and a volume of selected works appeared in 2021. In 1982 his satirical stories won the newspaper “O'zbekiston adabiyoti va san'ati” prize for the best satirical work of the year, and in 1992 his journalism in the magazine “Mushtum” won the magazine’s prize for the best journalistic work of the year.

In 1999 he was given the title Honoured Worker of Culture of Uzbekistan, and in 2001 the Order of Labor Glory. Boshbekov was a member of the Writers’ Union of Uzbekistan. He died in Tashkent on 26 January 2022, aged 71.