About the Work

by Munira Norova

When we look back on our childhoods, joy and euphoria light up our faces, revealing a smile on our lips. Years with no troubles. Years of innocence. But, at some point, something glints in the recesses of our minds and evokes sadness. A moment we would rather not remember. We try to shake it off. Sometimes we manage, sometimes not. The narrator of “The Carpet Socks” struggles to leave just such a memory behind, for it constantly presents itself, and with it comes a feeling of guilt. He tries to ease this pain with the gift of carpet socks, but does it work? Can a wound so deep heal? 

Whenever I read “The Carpet Socks,” I have the same feeling of sorrow: for a mother’s sacrifice to save her child, and the child’s never-ending regret. 

“The Carpet Socks” is one of the remarkable stories in The Trials and Tribulations of Life, a novella by O'tkir Hoshimov, an outstanding Uzbek writer. These are stories about the world of mothers, a world we can never fully understand. Said Ahmad, another prominent Uzbek writer, once said: “I would call The Trials and Tribulations of Life not a novella, but an epos, for it can be read like a song. We think of our mothers while reading it. As we are reading, a question emerges: have we been able to pay off at least one of our debts to these kind and devoted mothers?”

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O'tkir Hoshimov (1941-2013) was born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. His first book was a collection of essays called Poʻlat chavandoz (Steel Rider, 1962), while Choʻl havosi (Desert Air, 1963) is considered his first major work of fiction. His novellas include Shamol esaveradi (The Wind Will Keep Blowing, 1966), Bahor qaytmaydi (Spring Will Not Return, 1968), Qalbingga quloq sol (Listen to Your Heart, 1973), and Dunyoning ishlari (The Trials and Tribulations of Life, 1982), from which “The Carpet Socks” is excerpted. This last work,a series of autobiographical vignettes that centralizes women’s experiences, is set in an Uzbek mahalla during the aftermath of the Second World War. In later novels, including Ikki eshik orasi (Between Two Doors, 1986), he experimented with structure, narrating events from different perspectives and across different time periods. His novel Tushda kechgan umrlar (Lives Passed in Dream, 1993) is even more aesthetically daring, blurring the boundaries between past and present. Several of his works have been adapted for the screen. He has also written a number of plays and screenplays. In the years preceding the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Hoshimov drew public attention to the repression of Uzbeks; in the run-up to Independence, he was the leader in establishing a national literary style that deviated from the linear plotting of socialist realism.

Munira Norova is a translator of Uzbek fiction and poetry based in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. She also translates fiction from Russian, English, and Turkish into Uzbek. She has a BA in English language and literature from Karshi State University. She has translated short stories by Katherine Mansfield, Mark Twain, James Joyce, Sabahattin Ali, Cemil Kavukçu, and others. Her translations have appeared in a wide array of publications, including World Literature (Jahon adabiyoti), Youth (Yoshlik), and World of Books (Kitob dunyosi). She has published two full-length translations (the novels Irving Stone’s Lust for Life and Serdar Ozkan’s The Missing Rose by Serdar Ozkan). Along with translating poetry, she writes poetry. One of her poems is a winner of the Inspired by Tagore, an International writing competition, held by Sampad and British Council (2012, Birmingham, UK) and published in its anthology.


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