Latif Mahmudov

He was born on July 1, 1933, in the Mirobod neighborhood of Tashkent, into a family of civil servants. In 1951, he finished the railroad-run School No. 40 in Mirobod and entered the journalism department of the philology faculty of the former Central Asian State University (now the National University). After graduating successfully in 1956, he began his labor career at the Republic radio. In 1958, the Main Editorial Office for broadcasts for children and adolescents was organized, and he was appointed as its Editor-in-Chief. Latif Mahmudov worked in this position for nearly twenty years, and from 1979, he headed the children's literature department at the former "Yosh Gvardiya" (now "Yangi Asr Avlodi") publishing house.

Latif Mahmudov is one of the prominent representatives of contemporary children's and adolescent literature. To date, more than thirty of the writer's books have been published.

Among these, books such as "Beloved Eyes" (1961) and "Plane Tree" (1961) are valued as his first creative samples. Following this, the author's collections of stories, novellas, and novels such as "Two Friends" (1963), "Loyalty" (1963), "Plane Tree" (1964), "Kestrel" (1965), "Secret of the Turbulent River" (1966), "Children's Joy" (1968), "Adventures of Two Lazybones" (1970), "Secret Letter" (1974), "Brave Children" (1971), "The Man Hidden in Blood" (1979), and "Secrets of the Old Dutar" (1980) suit the tastes and spirits of demanding children and adolescents. As a playwright, Latif Mahmudov has created a number of plays such as "The Boy Kidnapped by the Kestrel," "Ali-Vali," "Important Mission," and "Secret Letter." They continue to be performed on the stages of Youth Theaters. At the same time, a number of films have been created based on his works written about the lives of children and adolescents.

The select works created by Latif Mahmudov have also been translated into Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Latvian, Estonian, Georgian, Azerbaijani, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Turkmen, and Tajik languages.

The writer's book "Tulips in the Mountains" was awarded the Gafur Gulam Prize of the Uzbekistan Writers' Union in 1984. In 1977, he was given the high title of "Honored Cultural Worker of the Republic of Uzbekistan." In 2000, he was awarded the "For a Healthy Generation" order.