Cho'lpon — the pen name means "morning star" — was born Abdulhamid Sulaymon o'g'li Yunusov in Andijan in 1897. He studied in both traditional and Russian-native schools and was publishing poetry and journalism in his teens. He pulled Uzbek lyric verse out of classical convention into something recognisably modern, writing in a plain personal voice about longing and the state of his country. His collections Uyg'onish, Buloqlar and Tong sirlari shaped modern Uzbek poetry; he also wrote the novel Kecha va kunduz and translated Shakespeare. He was arrested in 1937 and executed on 4 October 1938.
Key achievements
Wrote Kecha va kunduz, a landmark of modern Uzbek prose
Translated Shakespeare's Hamlet and works of Pushkin into Uzbek
Executed in 1938; his poetry was banned for fifty years
