Halima Xudoyberdiyeva

Halima Xudoyberdiyeva was born on 17 May 1947 in the Boyovut district of Syrdarya region, in a gardener’s family. Her mother died when she was two, and her aunt Qarshigul raised her. She studied at Tashkent State University, graduating from the journalism faculty in 1972, and in 1975–1977 attended the Higher Literary Courses in Moscow. Her first collection, “Ilk muhabbat”, came out in 1969, while she was a student; then “Oq olmalar”, “Chaman”, “Suyanch tog‘larim”, “Issiq qor”, “Muqaddas ayol”, “Yuragimning og‘riq nuqtalari”, and in the years of independence “Bu kunlarga yetganlar bor” and “Turkiston onasi”. For “Muqaddas ayol” she received the Republic State Prize in 1990 and in 1991 the title People’s Poetess of Uzbekistan; she was editor-in-chief of the magazine “Saodat” for about ten years. She died in Tashkent on 17 August 2018. In “Dorilomon kunlar keldi...” a child urges her mother, as spring comes, to shake off sorrow and enjoy life. In “Begim, sizni tabiat…” a girl addresses the young man she loves and speaks of loyalty and pride. In “Shunchaki” the lyrical hero wants to do everything wholeheartedly: merely writing for the sake of it is death for a poet, she says.