"Sassan Tabatabai has composed a book of delicate mourning, exile, and love. Ancient Persia and modern Iran harmonize in his vision, as do the ancient poems of Rudaki and Rumi with the contemporary poems of Kadkani in Tabatabai’s translations. Sensuous, rueful and clear, these poems recreate lost worlds in imagination: their Beloved is both a country and a mysterious female figure worthy of the poet’s longing."
— Rosanna Warren
About the author
Born in Tehran, Iran, Sassan Tabatabai has lived in the United States since 1980. His journalism and creative writing has appeared in a number of publications including The Christian Science Monitor, Literary Imagination, Pusteblume,Senecca Review and Leviathan Quarterly. He teaches Persianate languages at Boston College, and humanities and language at Boston University where he is a member of the
Institute for Muslim Societies and Civilizations. His collection of translations with commentary, Father of Songs: Rudaki and His Poetry, was published in 2009 by Purdue University Press (now with Leiden University Press). He is Poetry Editor of News from the Republic of Letters.
