From Ferdowsi to Rumi and Hafiz, poetry has played a central role in the historical Iranian cultural imagination. How have contemporary poets contributed to this imagining of a nation, in the context of the twentieth century and its momentous events? In this book, Hamid Dabashi interrogates the oeuvre of six major poets: Nima Yushij (1895-1960), Mehdi Akhavan-e Sales (1929-1990), Ahmad Shamlou (1925-2000) Forough Farrokhzad (1934-1967), Sohrab Sepehri (1928-1980) and finally Esmail Khoi (1938-2021). Reading their works in the context of Iranian political history, from the Constitutional Revolution to the Iranian Revolution and beyond, he interprets their poetry as exercises in imagining an Iran that was still emerging and being contested. Providing an original theoretical and critical interpretation of modern Iran''s most well-known poets, based on his own translations from the Persian originals, this book will be essential reading for students and scholars of Persian literature and Iranian studies.

Autorentext

Hamid Dabashi is the Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. Born in Iran, he received a dual Ph.D. in the sociology of culture and Islamic studies from the University of Pennsylvania, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University. Dabashi has written and edited many books, including Iran, the Green Movement and the USA and The Arab Spring, as well as numerous chapters, essays, articles and book reviews. He is an internationally renowned cultural critic, whose writings have been translated into numerous languages.

Dabashi has been a columnist for the Egyptian Al-Ahram Weekly for over a decade, and is a regular contributor to Al Jazeera and CNN. He has been a committed teacher for nearly three decades and is also a public speaker, a current affairs essayist, a staunch anti-war activist and the founder of Dreams of a Nation. He has four children and lives in New York with his wife, the Iranian-Swedish feminist scholar and photographer Golbarg Bashi.

Inhalt

Introduction Imagine a Nation
Chapter One Nima Yushij: The Archetypal Event
Chapter Two Mehdi Akhavan-e Sales: Remembrance of Things Past
Chapter Three Ahmad Shamlou: The Troubadour of a Homeland to Come
Chapter Four Forough Farrokhzad: The Poetics of the Present
Chapter Five Sohrab Sepehri: A Metapoetic of Presence
Chapter Six Esmail Kho'i: The Voice from Nowhereville
Conclusion Six Persian Poets in Search of a Homeland