Sobir O'nar

Sobir Hamzayevich O'narov, known in literature as Sobir O'nar, was born on 25 February 1964 in the village of Quvkalla in the Qo'shrabot district of the Samarkand region. He finished the village school in 1981 and entered the journalism faculty of Tashkent State University (now the National University of Uzbekistan), graduating in 1986.

His stories began to appear in republican newspapers and magazines while he was still a student. In 1986 the magazine Yoshlik printed a series of his stories, and that same year he joined its editorial staff. From 1986 to 2015 he worked there as an editor, head of department, deputy editor-in-chief and editor-in-chief.

His first book, the story collection “Orzuga to'la qishloq” (A Village Full of Dreams), came out in 1989 from the Cho'lpon publishing house, and the same year he was admitted to the Writers' Union of Uzbekistan. It was followed by “Ovloq adirlar bag'rida” (1990) and “Chashma” (1991), the novellas “Inqilob kechasi”, “Dunyo shundoq tururmi?” and “Bibisora”, and the collections “Chambilbelning oydalasi” (2006), “Bibisora” (2011) and “Farishta” (2016). In 1993 he received the State Prize that is given to young authors on Independence Day.

O'nar also worked as a publicist: his articles and essays appeared in the main newspapers and magazines, and some were collected in “Ko'ngildagi buzilish” (1999, co-authored) and “Oldinda yongan mayoq” (2020). He translated into Uzbek a story by the Karakalpak writer Kh. Tojimuradov, “Ov hangomalari” (1990), and the novella “Karbalo fojiasi” by the Turkish author Bakir Yildiz. His own stories and novellas have been translated into Korean, Chinese, Kazakh, Russian and English.

From 2015 he was executive secretary of the newspaper Kuch adolatda, then worked at the Gafur Gulom publishing house (2016–2017) and at Yoshlar (2017–2019), and from 2020 in the prose section of the Writers' Union. In August 2022 he was awarded the Order of Friendship (Do'stlik). Sobir O'nar died in Tashkent on 18 December 2022, aged 58.