Azam Abidov, poet, translator, short short story writer,
cultural adviser, was born on November 8, 1974 in Namangan, city of flowers,
Uzbekistan. He trained in philology. He has several books of poetry and
translation to his credit, including Tunes of Asia (English
translation of contemporary Uzbek poetry), The Island of Anxiety (poems
in Uzbek, English and Spanish), Dream of Lightsome Dawns, A
Miracle Is On the Way and I Leave You in Complete Boredom.
He also translated some ghazals and epic poem (‘Farhod and Shirin’) by Alisher
Navoi, father of Uzbek poetry, into English. Azam also translated novels and
short stories by famous Uzbek writers such as Erkin A’zam, Evril Turon and
Salomat Vafo into English. Azam’s poems have been translated into more than 20 languages
and published worldwide. He was a Creative Writing Fellow at the University of
Iowa in the U.S. (2004) and a writer-in-residence at LCB in Berlin
(2017). He attended poetry festivals, creative writing workshops and
cultural events in over 20 countries. In collaboration with Uzbek poet Bahrom
Ruzimuhammad, Azam compiled two international poetry anthologies, Fish
and Snake and The Language of the Birds, involving
hundreds of contemporary poets from around the world. He is also a World Poetry
Movement’s coordinator of poetry events in Uzbekistan, and one of the founders
of Maysara literary and cultural club at the Yudakov and Oybek House-Museums in
Tashkent. In 2018, Azam launched the first-ever Writer/Artist Residency Program
in Uzbekistan for foreign authors and artists (http://azamabidov.uz/?cat=29). Azam lives with his wife, journalist
and poetess Nodira Abdullaeva, and with his three sons in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.