Poems from the Divan of Hafez

£9.99

Hafez, ‘the nightingale of Persian poetry’, in whose divan the ghazal, in its mystical, erotic and courtly aspects, found perfection, is perhaps the most beloved of all the great poets of Persia. Loved for his wisdom, universality and the exquisite music of his verse.

Hafez has nevertheless proved to be the most difficult, if not impossible, of poets to translate. But here we have, for the first time in English translation, not a slim volume but a substantial selection of his ghazals which bravely take on the challenges of formal structures, Sufi symbolism and ambiguities of meaning, while retaining a spirit of ecstatic utterance.

Accompanied by a marvellously rich introduction, this book opens a large and very inviting window on the work of a poet for whom it was ‘love alone which is everlasting in this world’.