Oybek and the novel “Navoiy” (first passage)

Oybek’s real name was Muso Toshmuhammad o‘g‘li; he was born on 10 January 1905 in the Govkush neighbourhood of Tashkent. His mother Shahodatbonu awakened his love of literature. He studied at the “Namuna” school and the Navoiy pedagogical technical school, ran the wall newspaper “Tong yulduzi” and graduated in 1925. He then studied at the Central Asian State University and, from 1927, at the Plekhanov Institute in St Petersburg, returning in 1930 because of poor health. In the 1930s he wrote about ten dastans (“Dilbar davr qizi”, “Baxtigul va Sog‘indiq” and others) and the novel “Qutlug‘ qon”. During the war years came the novel “Navoiy” and the drama “Mahmud Torobiy”. In 1943, together with G‘afur G‘ulom, he became a full member of the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan, and he led the Writers’ Union. From 1951, though gravely ill, he wrote the novels “Quyosh qoraymas” and “Ulug‘ yo‘l” and the novellas “Bolalik” and “Bola Alisher”. He died on 1 July 1968, aged 63.