Turob To‘la and “Do‘nan”

Turob To‘la was born on 24 December 1918 in the village of Turbat in what is now the South Kazakhstan region. He lost his parents early and grew up in a children’s home. In 1934–1938 he studied at the Tashkent Theatre School and in 1938–1941 at the evening department of the Pedagogical Institute. He began writing at 15–16, and his first collection, “She’rlar”, came out in 1939. He was a poet, prose writer, playwright and translator: many poems from his collection “Qanotlan, qo‘shiqlarim” (1955), such as “Sumbula”, “Ko‘chalar” and “Do‘ppi tikdim”, became songs; he wrote plays like “Qizbuloq” and “Nodirabegim”, screenplays for films such as “Shashmaqom”, and opera librettos; he translated Shakespeare’s comedy “The Taming of the Shrew” and works of Pushkin, Lermontov and others into Uzbek. In 1981 he wrote “Yetti zog‘ora qissasi” for children. He died on 20 April 1990 and held the title People’s Poet of Uzbekistan.