Imagine a Nation: Six Persian Poets in Search of a Homeland
Oct 2025 · Bloomsbury Publishing
Ebook
272
Pages
infoThis book will become available on October 30, 2025. You will not be charged until it is released.
About this ebook
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.
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.
About the author
Hamid Dabashi is Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, USA. He is the author of over 25 books and focuses on the social and intellectual history of Iran and Islam, both classical and contemporary. Among his most recent books are Reversing the Colonial Gaze: Persian Travelers Abroad (2019), The Last Muslim Intellectual: The Life and Legacy of Jalal Al-e Ahmad (2021), and An Iranian Childhood: Rethinking History and Memory (2023). He is a prominent commentator on global affairs, writing regularly for Al Jazeera, Middle East Eye, and other news outlets.
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