Hamid Ismailov: Devilish Uzbek Dances in the Shadow of the Red Bear
– Uzbekistan
Hamid Ismailov (* 1954) was born in Tokmok in Kyrgyzstan. Uzbek journalist, poet and writer was forced to escape from Uzbekistan to the United Kingdom in 1992, where he worked for BBC World for twenty-five years. His books are banned in Uzbekistan.
The first of his novels that has been translated to English was The Railway (Железная дорога in Russian) in 2006, which he finished writing before he had to leave his homeland. It was originally published in Russian in Moscow in 1997, however under a pseudonym Altaer Magdi (Магди). Another of his novels A Poet and Bin-Laden (Дорога к смерти больше чем смерть) was published in September 2012. His novel The Devils’ Dance was first published in Uzbek on Facebook chapter by chapter, as a book it was published in English in 2018. A year later, Ismailov was awarded the EBRD literature price. His novel Manaschi was published in English in 2021.