Toshpulat Ahmad

Toshpulat Ahmad was born on 13 December 1942 in the village of Denov in the Shofirkon district of the Bukhara region. In 1959–1964 he studied in the philology faculty of Samarkand State University. He began his working life as a schoolteacher and then worked as a literary staff member of a Samarkand regional newspaper.

From 1965 to 1975 he was a literary staff member, translator and department head at the Bukhara regional newspaper “Buxoro haqiqati” (now “Buxoronoma”). In 1975–1993 he led the Bukhara regional branch of the Writers’ Union of Uzbekistan, and in 1993–1996 he was editor-in-chief of “Buxoro haqiqati”. He also served as editor-in-chief of the magazine “Buxoro mavjlari”.

He wrote documentary prose and poetry. His books include the documentary novella “The Star of Bukhara” (1971), the essay collections “Oath and Vengeance”, “I Am Your Son, Life!” and “The White Pearl of the Soul”, and the story collection “The Open Door” (1975). Among his poetry books are “Minarets and Plane Trees” (1980), “Luminous Thoughts” (1984), “Garden of the Smile” (1986), “The Mihrab of the Faithful” (1991), “Fortress of Faith” (1994), “The Amulet of the East” (1996) for the 2,500th anniversary of Bukhara, the selected “Buxoronoma” (1997) and “The Pearl of the East” (2007), and the dastans “The Place of Prayer” (2011). His play “Lament” was staged.

He was also a translator: he rendered into Uzbek the novel “Black Ravens” by the Tajik writer Jalol Ikromi, as well as poems by Rasul Gamzatov, Vladimir Soloukhin, Avetik Isahakyan, Hovhannes Shiraz, Loiq Sherali and Ahmad Mukhtor. His works have been translated into Russian, Tajik, Turkmen, Hungarian, Spanish, Turkish and Kazakh.

Toshpulat Ahmad was an Honoured Worker of Culture (the title was awarded in 1990, that is, of the Uzbek SSR); he received the Order “Mehnat shuhrati” in 1998 and the Order “El-yurt hurmati” in 2007, and won an international competition for the National “Oltin qalam” prize. According to the administration of the Bukhara region, he died on 22 December 2019.