Sounds really interesting, Richard. Can't make it, but wish you a good
audience.
Doug
On 29-Oct-05, at 8:05 AM, Richard Jeffrey Newman wrote:
> Richard Jeffrey Newman will be reading from his translation of Saadi's
> Gulistan on Tuesday November 1 at Alwan for the Arts, www.alwan.org,
> starting at 7 PM. Details are below:
>
>
>
> Alwan for the Arts, 16 Beaver Street 4th Floor, (212) 967-4318
>
> $5-$10 suggested donation
>
>
>
> WHY PERSIAN LITERATURE? WHY NOW?
>
> SAADI'S 13TH CENTURY ROSE GARDEN IN TODAY'S WORLD
>
>
>
> Saadi of Shiraz, a contemporary of Rumi, is one of the masters of
> classical
> Persian literature. His masterpiece, the Gulistan (Rose Garden), is
> revered
> worldwide both for the literary pleasure it provides and for the
> wisdom it
> contains. In the 1600s, Andre du Ryer's translation of the Gulistan
> into
> French gave the West one of its first sympathetic windows into the
> world of
> Islam. Subsequent translations into Dutch, Latin, German, Russian and
> English spread Saadi's name and the humanistic values that are so
> central to
> his work throughout the literary and cultural landscapes of the 18th
> and
> 19th centuries, influencing writers like Goethe, Byron, Emerson and
> Thoreau.
> Emerson thought so highly of the Gulistan that he called it "a secular
> bible." In the 20th century, a passage from the Gulistan was inscribed
> in
> the lobby of the United Nations. Now, in the 21st century, with Iran
> occupying an ever more significant place on the world stage, it is
> important
> that we revisit that country's history and culture, reminding
> ourselves of
> the treasures it has given the world and looking to see what we can
> learn
> from those treasures not only about Iran and its people, but also about
> ourselves.
>
>
>
> Richard Jeffrey Newman is an essayist, poet and translator who has been
> publishing his work since 1988, when the essay "His Sexuality; Her
> Reproductive Rights" appeared in Changing Men magazine. Since then, his
> essays and poems have appeared in Salon.com, The American Voice, The
> Pedestal, Circumference, Prairie Schooner, ACM, Birmingham Poetry
> Reviewand
> other literary journals. He has given talks and led workshops on
> writing
> autobiographically about gender, sex and sexuality. Selections from
> Saadi's
> Gulistan, his first book, was published in 2004 by Global Scholarly
> Publications (GSP). He will be translating four more books for GSP:
> Saadi's
> other masterpiece, the Bustan, Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, Nezami's Haft
> Peykar
> and Attar's Elahi Nameh. His own book of poems, The Silence Of Men, is
> forthcoming from CavanKerry Press. You can learn more about his work at
> www.richardjnewman.com. He is an Associate Professor in the English
> Department at Nassau Community College.
>
>
>
>
Douglas Barbour
11655 - 72 Avenue NW
Edmonton Ab T6G 0B9
(780) 436 3320
The blank page
as merely an interval or
an intrusion. We could not rescue it
nor could we huddle, as if the page were
big enough.
Kathleen Fraser
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