In the 1920s, before the collectivization of the country, he was able to study veterinary medicine in Bishkek, an extraordinary opportunity for him as the child of an impoverished day laborer.

When the country was collectivized, he was at university, but had contracted tuberculosis and was forced to spend time recuperating in sanatoriums on the lake and in Georgia.

In his early stories he sang the praises of collectivization, which for many poor laborers (including his family) was a protection against oppression by landowners and other groups in power, a situation he knew very well.

[4] His best-known work is his third novel, Bizdin zamandyn kişileri ("People of our time"), written during and right after World War II.

During the war, Sydykbekov traveled throughout the region in order to describe daily life as accurately as possible, and in his novel sang the praises of the Kyrgyz population, who showed hospitality toward everyone, including widowed Russian women and orphaned Ukrainian children.