A. T. Tvardovsky, R. Farkhadi, Mark Twain

Raim Hakimovich Farkhadi was born in 1942 in Samarkand: a poet, prose writer, playwright, children’s writer, translator and Honoured Cultural Worker of Uzbekistan. His grandfather and father were well-known medical scholars, and he became a doctor too. He began to compose verse before school, before the alphabet. His first collection «Утренняя песнь» came out in 1964; later «Сады ветров», «Фрески Афрасиаба», «Муравьиное метро», «Фантазёр» and other books followed. His works are translated into many languages, and one of the main themes is the Motherland. In «Узбекистан» the poet calls the land steppe, valley and mountain, a book of life and a dastan. It is a country blooming in spring, many-coloured in autumn, with a dastarkhan generously laid for guests; a land of heroes like Farhad and Rustam, of gardens grown in the sands and blue buildings. The poet is proud to be tied forever to this country and people.