Durbek

Dates of birth and death unknown. Uzbek poet of the late 14th and early 15th century.

Of Durbek’s works, only the romantic narrative love poem Yusuf and Zulaikha, written in Old Uzbek, has come down to us. It is about the biblical legend of Joseph and the wife of the Egyptian noble Potiphar, which became known in the East through the Koran and various literary versions of Persian-Tadzhik poets of the ninth through 11th centuries. In Durbek’s version, however, the narrative poem has no religious overtones and is full of living images, human experiences, and details of everyday life.