Tolib Yoldosh

Tolib Yoldosh was born in the Gulbozor neighbourhood of Tashkent (the sources place it in the Chilonzor area) to an ordinary working family. Most sources give 1918 as his birth year, a few 1919. He had no schooling and, after the age of forty, decided to learn, attending preparatory and evening courses.

He had in fact been writing verse long before: his first poem, “Saylayman”, was published in 1937, when he was 18, and his first collection, “Bori bilan chol”, appeared in 1943. In his autobiography he wrote that he had since published nearly forty collections, half for children and half for adults.

His children's poetry is simple and fluent in language, often built on riddles, with many fairy tales and verse tales such as “Ovchi”, “Toqlikka shoxlik”, “Xumcha bilan nimcha”, “Qorqoq quyon”, “Ormonliklar orzusi” and “Toshmat uchgan”. About twenty collections are for children, among them “Baxtiyorlar qoshigi”, “Porloq erta”, “Polizda”, “Domboqlar” and “Quyosh bilan suhbat”.

For adults he wrote mainly philosophical quatrains and octets, gathered in the cycles “Yetuklik” and “Yillar va oylar” in the collection “Oshiq ongil” (1974). Satire is a large part of his work too: his humorous pieces were also published separately in the Mushtum Library series, and poems from the collection “Ajabsanda” such as “Hech kim bilmasin”, “Sayoq”, “Moda” and “Bali-bali” were used in radio and television miniatures. His ghazals and satirical songs were performed by well-known artists.

He was given the title of Honoured Worker of Culture in 1989 and, in 1998, the order “El-yurt hurmati” on the seventh anniversary of independence. Tolib Yoldosh died in 2002.