An Uzbek Russian-language poet, prose writer, and essayist, one of the leaders of the “Fergana poetic group” (the “Fergana poetic school”). Born in Fergana in 1957. Graduated from the Philology Department of the Fergana Pedagogical Institute. Lived in Fergana, later in Almaty. From 1991 to 1995 he headed the poetry section of the magazine “Zvezda Vostoka”. Author of books of poetry, prose, and essays; laureate of the Andrei Bely Prize (1993), a Joseph Brodsky Foundation fellow (2015), and winner of the Volga/NOS Prize of the Mikhail Prokhorov Foundation for the prose book “Другой юг” (“Another South”, 2020). Died in 2024 in Almaty. At present, the publishing house “Nosorog” is preparing a collected edition of Shamshad Abdullaev’s poems, “Очевидность юга” (“The Evident South”).