Bunting's Persia

Edited and introduced with notes by Don Share, Bunting's Persia collects Basil Bunting’s translations from Persian poetry by Rudaki, Ferdowsi, Manuchehri, Sa‘di, Hafiz, and Obaid-e Zakani, including previously unpublished translations. Bunting, who is widely regarded as one of the most important British poets of the twentieth century, proved unusual in his deep and abiding interest in Middle Eastern culture. Here, he renders poetry of remarkable tonal and emotional range in characteristically clear and resolute language.

“Reading Bunting’s translations, I am struck again by how fresh and strong they are, how vivid in their feeling, and how he digs into the spirit of the originals—a kind of passionate excavation work.”—Dick Davis, translator of The Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings