TEHRAN – A selection of British poet and translator Dick Davis’s essays about the translation of Persian classical poetry into English will be reviewed in a session at Tehran’s Book City Institute next week.

Agah, a Tehran-based publisher, has recently published the articles in a book titled “The Musician in the Garden”, which has been compiled and translated into Persian by Mostafa Hosseini.

The book takes its name from “The Musician in the Garden: On Translating Shahnameh”, an essay written by Davis.

Scholars Abolfazl Horri, Mohammad Ghaffari as well as translator Hosseini are expected to attend the session on January 28.

Davis was born in Portsmouth, England, and was educated at the universities of Cambridge and Manchester. He is a professor emeritus of Persian at Ohio State University.  

He lived for 8 years in Iran, as well as for periods in Greece and Italy. As an author, translator or editor, he has produced 18 books. Besides academic works, he has published translations of prose from Italian and poetry and prose from Persian, and six books of his own poetry.

“Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings”, his translation of Persian poet Ferdowsi’s masterpiece Shahnameh was chosen as one of the ten best books of 2006 by the Washington Post.

“Belonging” and “A Trick of Sunlight” are among his noteworthy poems. 

His other credits include “The Conference of the Birds”, “Faces of Love: Hafez and the Poets of Shiraz”, and “The Mirror of My Heart: A Thousand Years of Persian Poetry by Women”.

Photo: Front cover of the book “The Musician in the Garden”.

RM/MMS/YAW