Timur Pulatov

Timur Pulatov was born on 22 July 1939 in Bukhara. His father was a teacher; at fourteen the boy was already working, first in a shoe factory and then for a building firm in the desert. In 1963 he graduated from the Pedagogical Institute in Bukhara and taught at a village school.

He entered literature in 1964 with the novella “Don’t Walk Along the Roadside”, printed in the magazine Zvezda Vostoka. Pulatov writes in Russian, and his books appeared in Tashkent and Moscow. In 1967 he completed the Higher Courses for Scriptwriters and Directors in Moscow and worked as chief editor of the Uzbekfilm studio. He wrote screenplays for several feature films: “The Commander’s Return” (1968, directed by D. Salimov, based on his novella “Other Inhabited Places”), “This Fine Fellow” (1972, E. Khachaturov) and “The Last Journey of Kaip” (1991, F. Davletshin).

His main books include the novellas “The Second Journey of Kaip”, “Watchtowers” and “Possessions”, the novels “The Turtle of Tarazi”, about a medieval scholar from Bukhara, and “Floating Eurasia”, and the trilogy “Passions of the Bukhara House”. Some works could not be published in Uzbekistan because of censorship and appeared in Russia years later. His books have been translated into Arabic, Urdu, Persian, Hindi, English and other languages; German editions came out in Berlin in 1981–1988.

Pulatov has belonged to the USSR Writers’ Union since 1968. In 1989 he was named People’s Writer of the Uzbek SSR; he is also a laureate of the Hamza State Prize of the Uzbek SSR and a People’s Writer of Tajikistan. His honours include the Vazha-Pshavela literary prize (Georgia), the Sayat-Nova prize (Armenia) and, in 1997, the Sholokhov International Prize.

In 1991 he was elected first secretary of the board of the USSR Writers’ Union. When the union was reorganised in 1992 into the International Community of Writers’ Unions of Russia and the CIS countries, Pulatov became first secretary of its executive committee, and from 1994 to 2000 he chaired the community. During those years national literary prizes were established, and from 1998 the newspaper Literaturnaya Evraziya began to appear.

In 2000 Pulatov left the chairmanship and returned to writing. A three-volume edition of his selected works came out from the Sovremenny Pisatel publishing house in 1996, with a fourth volume in 1999. He has lived in Moscow since 1991. His work has been studied in Russia, Germany and elsewhere, including a 2005 monograph by E. F. Shafranskaya.