Safar Barnoyev

The first poetry collection by the children's and adolescent writer Safar Barnoyev was published in 1970 under the title «Tog‘damen». He was awarded the «Ofarin» prize for his contribution to the development of children's literature. When it came time to cover the children's and adolescent writer Safar Barnoyev, we preferred to present his «My Biography», which the writer wrote himself, as an experiment.

Biography

«Usually, a person who writes a biography or fills out an official document writes accurately: 'I was born on such-and-such day of such-and-such month of such-and-such year'.

Unfortunately, I cannot do that. The reason: until I finished school, there were no documents in the hands of my late mother, Rozigul Sobir qizi. When a document was requested from the man who worked as the village council chairman in Dilkusho, the place near Bukhara where I was born, he filled out a certificate without hesitation, saying, 'your child is the same age as my son'.

It states that my year of birth is May 6, 1938. I have lived with this calculation. No one has even asked otherwise... In fact, my mother used to say, 'you were born when the mulberries were ripening, on the day of someone's wedding'.

My mother also said that when I was six months old, my father went to war: 'He hugged you and wept, saying, "My shroud is wrapped around my neck; I will never be able to see you again." I realized later that my father had said goodbye to us forever. This is now my eternal regret - if you browse through my collections of poems and ballads titled «Sog‘inch» and «Chehralar», you will feel this pain. That is why I wrote poems titled "We, the Children of War".

I finished the tenth grade in Bukhara-i Sharif in 1959. For a while, I worked in construction. I wore a military uniform for a bit.

In 1966, I finished the journalism department at Tashkent State University. My first poem was published in 1959 under the title «Lager qo‘ynida»...»

The writer held responsible positions at the «Kamalak» publishing house, the Republican Writers' Union, and the Ministry of Public Education. For several years, he was the editor-in-chief of «Gulxan» magazine.

Safar Barnoyev passed away in 2000.

Career

His first poetry collection was published in 1970 under the title «Tog‘damen». After that, dozens of his poetry and prose works were published, such as «Birinchi tabassum» (1972), «Dadamning qo‘llari» (1974), «Sog‘inch» (1975), «Yulduzxon va Bahorjon» (1977), «Soldat qaytgan kun» (1979), «Oq laylaklar» (1982), «Egizaklar» (1985), «Mukofot» (1983), «Tinchlikni ulug‘laymiz» (1986), «Dadam haqida qo‘shiq» (1989), and «Karimjon - karmon» (1988).

Many of these were also translated into Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Latvian, Moldovan, Polish, Czech, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Tajik, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Turkmen, and Karakalpak languages. The main characters of the works included in these collections are young people and adolescents, and the main idea is to educate today's youth in the spirit of independence by showing the wounds left by the war.

His story series «Ota o‘g‘li» and «Qirq yettinchi yil» promote this same goal and idea.

As the writer writes in his biography, he went to Afghanistan in 1987. "The main intention of going was to see and feel how our fathers and grandfathers accepted the revolution in the twenties. I returned having seen on Afghan soil that the same people led both the Saur Revolution and the October Revolution." The «Afg‘on hikoyalari» series was born in this way. «Shayton ergashgan bola» is also a fruit of that trip.

Safar Barnoyev was awarded the annual G‘afur G‘ulom prize of the Writers' Union of Uzbekistan for his book «Tinchlikni ulug‘laymiz», and the «Ofarin» prize for his contribution to the development of children's literature.