Download or read book Shahnameh written by Abolqasem Ferdowsi and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016-03-08 with total page 1041 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The definitive translation by Dick Davis of the great national epic of Iran—now newly revised and expanded to be the most complete English-language edition A Penguin Classic Dick Davis—“our pre-eminent translator from the Persian” (The Washington Post)—has revised and expanded his acclaimed translation of Ferdowsi’s masterpiece, adding more than 100 pages of newly translated text. Davis’s elegant combination of prose and verse allows the poetry of the Shahnameh to sing its own tales directly, interspersed sparingly with clearly marked explanations to ease along modern readers. Originally composed for the Samanid princes of Khorasan in the tenth century, the Shahnameh is among the greatest works of world literature. This prodigious narrative tells the story of pre-Islamic Persia, from the mythical creation of the world and the dawn of Persian civilization through the seventh-century Arab conquest. The stories of the Shahnameh are deeply embedded in Persian culture and beyond, as attested by their appearance in such works as The Kite Runner and the love poems of Rumi and Hafez. For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Download or read book Mirror of the Invisible World written by Peter J. Chelkowski and published by Metropolitan Museum of Art. This book was released on 1975 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this volume three stories from Persian poem the Khamseh - "Khosrow and Shirin," "Layla and Majnum," and "The Seven Princesses" - have been told with abridgement in prose. They are augmented by color reproductions of Persian miniatures based on an early 16th manuscript dated 1524/25.

Download or read book Faces of Love Hafez and the Poets of Shiraz written by Mohammad Hafez-e Shirazi and published by Mage Publishers. This book was released on 2023-05-09 with total page 584 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Epic of Kings Hero Tales of Ancient Persia written by Firdausi and published by Phoemixx Classics Ebooks. This book was released on 2021-11-16 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Epic of Kings, Hero Tales of Ancient Persia Firdausi - The Epic of Kings, Hero Tales of Ancient Persia (The Shahnameh) is an epic poem by the Persian poet Firdausi, written between 966 and 1010 AD. Telling the past of the Persian empire, using a mix of the mythical and historical, it is regarded as a literary masterpiece. Not only important to the Persian culture, it is also important to modern day followers of the Zoroastrianism religion. It is said that the poem was Firdausi's efforts to preserve the memory of Persia's golden days, following the fall of the Sassanid empire. The poem contains, among others, mentions of the romance of Zal and Rudba, Alexander the Great, the wars with Afrsyb, and the romance of Bijan and Manijeh.

Download or read book Legend of Seyavash written by Shahnameh Ferdowsi and published by . This book was released on 2001-10 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ferdowsi, acknowledged as the greatest of Persian writers, completed his great epic the Shahnameh (Book of Kings)around 1010 AD - legend claims that it was written over 35 years as a dowry for his daughter. This is one of its many tales and is presented here in couplet form.

Download or read book Layli and Majnun written by Nezami Ganjavi and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-02-09 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Persian epic that inspired Eric Clapton's unforgettable love song "Layla" and that Lord Byron called "the Romeo and Juliet of the East," in a masterly new translation A Penguin Classic The iconic love story of the Middle East, by a twelfth-century Persian poet who has been compared to Shakespeare for his subtlety, inventiveness, and dramatic force, Layli and Majnun tells of star-crossed lovers whose union is tragically thwarted by their families and whose passion continues to ripple out across the centuries. Theirs is a love that lasts a lifetime, and in Nezami's immortal telling, erotic longing blends with spiritual self-denial in an allegory of Sufi aspiration, as the amenities of civilization give way to the elemental wilderness, desire is sublimated into a mystical renunciation of the physical world, and the soul confronts its essence. This is a tour de force of Persian literature, in a translation that captures the extraordinary power and virtuosity of the original.

Download or read book The Mirror of My Heart A Thousand Years of Persian Poetry by Women written by Rabe`eh Balkhi and published by Mage Publishers. This book was released on 2023-05-09 with total page 600 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the very first Persian poets was a woman (Rabe’eh, who lived over a thousand years ago) and there have been women poets writing in Persian in virtually every generation since that time until the present. Before the twentieth century they tended to come from society’s social extremes. Many were princesses, a good number were hired entertainers of one kind or another, and they were active in many different countries – Iran of course, but also India, Afghanistan, and areas of central Asia that are now Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan. Not surprisingly, a lot of their poetry sounds like that of their male counterparts, but a lot doesn’t; there are distinctively bawdy and flirtatious poems by medieval women poets, poems from virtually every era in which the poet complains about her husband (sometimes light-heartedly, sometimes with poignant seriousness), touching poems on the death of a child, and many epigrams centered on little details that bring a life from hundreds of years ago vividly before our eyes. This new bilingual edition of The Mirror of My Heart – the poems in Persian and English on facing pages – is a unique and captivating collection introduced and translated by Dick Davis, an acclaimed scholar and translator of Persian literature as well as a gifted poet in his own right. In his introduction he provides fascinating background detail on Persian poetry written by women through the ages, including common themes and motifs and a brief overview of Iranian history showing how women poets have been affected by the changing dynasties. From Rabe’eh in the tenth century to Fatemeh Ekhtesari in the twenty-first, each of the eighty-four poets in this volume is introduced in a short biographical note, while explanatory notes give further insight into the poems themselves.

Download or read book A Key to the Treasure of the Hak m written by J. Christoph Bürgel and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Includes thirteen essays by eminent scholars in the field of Persian Studies, each focusing on different aspects of the Khamsa, which is a collection of five long poems written by the Persian poet Nizami of Ganja. Nizami (1141-1209) lived and worked in Ganja in present-day Azerbaijan.

Download or read book Khosrow and Shirin written by Nezami Ganjavi and published by Mage Publishers. This book was released on 2024-01-16 with total page 485 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Khosrow and Shirin is a love story by Nezami Ganjavi--considered the greatest medieval Persian romance poet--based on historical characters of the seventh-century Iranian court. Written 850 years ago, the narrative poem is presented here for the first time in a stunning modern-verse English translation by Dick Davis, the pre-eminent translator of Persian poetry. The love between an Iranian prince (Khosrow) and an Armenian princess (Shirin) is at the center of this tumultuous tale in which the exigencies of politics and warfare intertwine with no less powerful forces of erotic desire and the quest for personal and spiritual fulfilment. Nezami vividly dramatizes the clash between heroism and sensuality as they are pitted against the desire for the amenities of order and humane civilization. These marvelously presented discordant themes result in a complex love story based on conflicting concepts of love, one regarding the beloved as a prize to be conquered and possessed, the other unrequited and all-consuming, relishing the very notion of the annihilation of the self through love. Davis has captured the energy and poetry of Nezami's original in a delightful, contemporary idiom, and given us a story to read aloud, to savor, and to treasure for its luminous lyrical mastery. Davis's superb introduction and textual commentary provide insightful background information for the general reader and scholar alike, intensifying the strength of Davis's translation. Khosrow and Shirin will enchant both the classicist and the general reader, to captivate a new audience for Nezami's masterpiece.

Download or read book Censoring an Iranian Love Story written by Shahriar Mandanipour and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2009-05-05 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • “One of Iran's most important living fiction writers” (The Guardian) shows what it’s like to live and love there today. "A haunting portrait of life in the Islamic Republic of Iran." —The New York Times In a country where mere proximity between a man and a woman may be the prologue to deadly sin, where illicit passion is punished by imprisonment, or even death, telling that most redemptive of human narratives becomes the greatest literary challenge. If conducting a love affair in modern Iran is not a simple undertaking, then telling the story of that love may be even more difficult. Shahriar Mandanipour (author of Moon Brow) evokes a pair of young lovers who find each other—despite surreal persecution and repressive parents—through coded messages and internet chat rooms; and triumphantly their story entwines with an account of their creator’s struggle. Inventive, darkly comic and profoundly touching, Censoring an Iranian Love Story celebrates both the unquenchable power of the written word and a love that is doomed, glorious, and utterly real.

Download or read book Haft Paykar written by Nizami and published by Hackett Publishing. This book was released on 2015-08-21 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "It was a refreshing, old-fashioned pleasure to read Julie Scott Meisami’s verse translation of, and introduction and notes to, this twelfth-century Persian allegorical romance." —Orhan Pahmuk, in the Times Literary Supplement

Download or read book Everything Sad Is Untrue written by Daniel Nayeri and published by Chronicle Books. This book was released on 2020-08-25 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A National Indie Bestseller An NPR Best Book of the Year A New York Times Best Book of the Year An Amazon Best Book of the Year A Booklist Editors' Choice A BookPage Best Book of the Year A NECBA Windows & Mirrors Selection A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year A Wall Street Journal Best Book of the Year A Today.com Best of the Year PRAISE "A modern masterpiece." —The New York Times Book Review "Supple, sparkling and original." —The Wall Street Journal "Mesmerizing." —TODAY.com "This book could change the world." —BookPage "Like nothing else you've read or ever will read." —Linda Sue Park "It hooks you right from the opening line." —NPR SEVEN STARRED REVIEWS ★ "A modern epic." —Kirkus Reviews, starred review ★ "A rare treasure of a book." —Publishers Weekly, starred review ★ "A story that soars." —The Bulletin, starred review ★ "At once beautiful and painful." —School Library Journal, starred review ★ "Raises the literary bar in children's lit." —Booklist, starred review ★ "Poignant and powerful." —Foreword Reviews, starred review ★ "One of the most extraordinary books of the year." —BookPage, starred review A sprawling, evocative, and groundbreaking autobiographical novel told in the unforgettable and hilarious voice of a young Iranian refugee. It is a powerfully layered novel that poses the questions: Who owns the truth? Who speaks it? Who believes it? "A patchwork story is the shame of the refugee," Nayeri writes early in the novel. In an Oklahoman middle school, Khosrou (whom everyone calls Daniel) stands in front of a skeptical audience of classmates, telling the tales of his family's history, stretching back years, decades, and centuries. At the core is Daniel's story of how they became refugees—starting with his mother's vocal embrace of Christianity in a country that made such a thing a capital offense, and continuing through their midnight flight from the secret police, bribing their way onto a plane-to-anywhere. Anywhere becomes the sad, cement refugee camps of Italy, and then finally asylum in the U.S. Implementing a distinct literary style and challenging western narrative structures, Nayeri deftly weaves through stories of the long and beautiful history of his family in Iran, adding a richness of ancient tales and Persian folklore. Like Scheherazade of One Thousand and One Nights in a hostile classroom, Daniel spins a tale to save his own life: to stake his claim to the truth. EVERYTHING SAD IS UNTRUE (a true story) is a tale of heartbreak and resilience and urges readers to speak their truth and be heard.

Download or read book Fal E Hafez Omens of Hafez written by Hafez and published by . This book was released on 2018-11-13 with total page 438 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: FAL-E HAFEZ (Omens of Hafez) Translation, Introduction, Interpretations: Paul Smith. Hafez's famous Divan of poems has been used as a Guide successfully by millions of people from all walks of life for the past 600 years. The practice of interpreting his insightful poems (receiving a 'Fal' or Omen) has been a tradition for 600 years. Here are over four hundred ghazals with insightful, clear interpretations by Paul Smith (written over 15 years), an Introduction that includes his life, poetry, spirituality and the history of the use of his book as one of the world's great Oracles. The correct rhyme has been kept and the beauty and meaning of these immortal, mystical poems. Large Format Paperback 7" x 10" 438 pages Gertrude Bell: "It is as if his mental Eye, endowed with wonderful acuteness of vision, had penetrated into those provinces of thought which we of a later age were destined to inhabit."Meher Baba: "There is no equal to Hafez in poetry. He was a Perfect Master ... His Divan is the best book in the world because it engenders feelings which ultimately lead to illumination." COMMENTS ON PAUL SMITH'S TRANSLATION OF HAFEZ'S 'DIVAN'."It is not a joke... English version of ALL the ghazals of Hafez is a great feat of paramount importance." Dr. Mir Mohammad Taghavi (Dr. of Literature) Tehran. "Superb translations. 99% Hafez 1% Paul Smith." Ali Akbar Shapurzman, translator and knower of Hafiz's Divan off by heart. "I was very impressed with the beauty of these books." Dr. R.K. Barz. Faculty of Asian Studies, Australian National University. "Smith has probably put together the greatest collection of literary facts and history concerning Hafez." Daniel Ladinsky (Penguin Books author). Paul Smith (b. 1945) is a poet, author and translator of many books of Sufi poets from the Persian, Arabic, Urdu, Turkish, Pashtu and other languages including Hafiz, Sadi, Nizami, Rumi, 'Attar, Sana'i, Jahan Khatun, Obeyd Zakani, Mu'in, Amir Khusrau, Nesimi, Kabir, Anvari, Ansari, Jami, Omar Khayyam, Rudaki, Yunus Emre, Iqbal, Ghalib, Ibn al-Farid, Hali, Jigar, Seemab, Huma, Vrind and others, and his own poetry, fiction, plays, biographies and screenplays. amazon.com/author/smithpa

Download or read book The Interpretation of Nizami s Cultural Heritagein the Contemporary Period written by Christine van Ruymbeke and published by . This book was released on 2020-08-11 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book fills a void in the field of pre-modern literature written in Persian. It is the first scholarly publication in English language on and around the poet Nizami Ganjavi written by important Western and Non-Western scholars, enriching the field with an awareness of their knowledge and research interests. The multidisciplinary volume initiates a much-needed dialogue it initiates a much-needed dialogue between the metropolitan and postcolonial academic points of view. By the example of Nizami's poems it shows how different academic circles interpret Medieval authors in relation to modern-day national identity and national cultures. Unlike in Europe and USA, in the USSR citizenship and ethnicity, like two modern official different criteria of identity, became a stumbling block in the division of cultural heritage of the past. Irredentism is a central topic in the post-Soviet Union world and gives a voice to the peripheral rather than to the metropolis with its colonial arguments. The richness and usefulness of this volume is that the contributions that take this innovative standpoint are put side by side with others, which remain within the traditional literary analysis and examine Nizami's creative thoughts on human, society, women, or justice.

Download or read book Layla and Majnun written by Ganjavi Nizami and published by Blake Publishing. This book was released on 1997 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The text is a prose rendition of Nizami's 12th-century poetic masterpiece, in which he reshapes the legends of Majnun, the quintessential romantic fool, into a tale of the ideal lover. For the Sufis, Majnun represents the perfect devotee of the "religion of the heart," and the story is an allegory of the soul's longing for God. This is a beautiful production, and it includes a final chapter newly translated from the Persian by Omid Safi and Zia Inayat Khan.

Download or read book Divan of Baba Tahir written by Baba Tahir and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2018-12-04 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Palace and Mosque written by Tim Stanley and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Published in paperback for the opening of the new Jameel Gallery of Islamic Art at the V&A, this fascinating introduction to Islamic art and culture draws on examples from its magnificent collections. It is an invaluable overview of a complex subject, exploring the cultural significance of objects in different media, from ceramics, miniature painting and textiles to wood-carving and metalwork, while the superb photographs highlight their unique craftsmanship. From the Middle East came the earliest astrological clocks, the finest ceramics and lustreware, the development of calligraphy and Arabic scripts, and the intricate skills of carpet-weaving, among many other profoundly significant cultural developments. This cradle of empires was also a vibrant commercial centre, exporting raw materials, skills and techniques to surrounding lands, and spreading its web of influence from Southern Spain to Northern India. Palace and Mosque distills a rich and vibrant culture, and will be of lasting value to all those interested in the glories of the Islamic world.