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The Diplomat ·For the curious

Can a State Build a Reading Culture? Uzbekistan is Trying.

by Sojida Hamid

Published 2026-08-25 21:28:00+09:00

Can a government build a reading culture just by translating the right books?

0:00 / 11:14 · Narrator Sulafat

Context

In a piece published on 25 August 2026, The Diplomat visits a state-funded translation desk in Uzbekistan. The government is trying to engineer a national reading habit from the top down, paying to translate one thousand major scientific and literary works into Uzbek. It is a massive logistical puzzle, forcing editors to invent modern academic vocabulary on the fly. But the effort eventually bumps into a much older, more stubborn problem. A government can print thousands of books and build library apps, but can it actually manufacture the desire to read?

Show notes

An account of Uzbekistan's state-funded program to translate major scientific and literary works into the Uzbek language. Drawing on their experience as an intern for the project, the author details the linguistic hurdles of updating a vocabulary to handle modern academic concepts. They also outline the practical limits of trying to build a national reading habit from the top down.

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