Qozoqboy Yoldoshev: On “Galaktikada bir kun” (A Day in the Galaxy)

— I used to take pride in Sadullo Quronov as one of our youngest critics and one of our youngest Doctors of Sciences. This young man, who lives ahead of his time, has amazed me not only with his scholarly potential but with his literary gifts as well. I thought of him as a fine researcher who does not confine himself to our own shell but looks at Uzbek literary phenomena with a global eye — and then he called me and told me he had written a science-fiction book… To be honest, children’s prose has been faltering in recent years. We are still swimming in the river of Xudoyberdi Toxtaboyev, People’s Writer of Uzbekistan — and yet this master of ours has been writing for sixty years. Isn’t it time we rose to a new stage? On top of that, the interests of the Uzbek nation are often confined to the “wishes of the stomach”, that is, to gastronomic interests. Having read the science-fiction book “Galaktikada bir kun” (A Day in the Galaxy), I realised that our nation has been touched by the longing for enlightenment and, at last, has become concerned with getting to know the world. Through this book Sadullo Quronov has revealed himself in my eyes not simply as an author interested in science fiction but as a gifted writer who has truly found his touch. Ahmad’s dream, the realism of the struggles depicted in it, the fact that in 2036 a mother is still a mother and a father still a father, each in their proper place, and that the child confides many of his troubles not to his father but to his mother — such details show that the book was written in our own national spirit.