Safarov, Nazir

Born Jan. 9, 1905, in the city of Dzhizak. Soviet Uzbek writer. Honored Art Worker of the Uzbek SSR (1950). Member of the CPSU since 1929.

In 1935, Safarov graduated from the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Uzbek SSR. He fought in the Great Patriotic War (1941–45). His works were first published in 1926. Safarov has written anthologies of short stories and sketches, including Fellow Countrymen (1958), The Golden Month (1961), and A Drop of Blood (1967). He also wrote the novellas The Shrewd Girl (1961) and What Has Been Lived and Endured (1968; Khamza State Prize of the Uzbek SSR, 1968) and the novels The Day of Curses and the Day of Hopes (in Russian, 1970) and New Year, also published as The Time of the White Storks (1973). He has written plays as well, including The Awakening (1938), which is about the uprising of 1916 in Middle Asia, and The Dawn of the East (1948), which deals with revolutionary events in Uzbekistan. Safarov treated contemporary themes in the drama The School of Life (1954) and the comedy Sorrow for Some, Laughter for Others (1963). He also collaborated on the screenplay for the film Storm Over Asia (1965). His works have been translated into many languages of the peoples of the USSR.

Safarov has served as executive secretary of the Organizational Bureau of the Writers’ Union of the Uzbek SSR, of the Central Committee of the CPSU, and of the Writers’ Union of the Uzbek SSR (1932–35). He has been awarded four orders and various medals.