The Tangled Braid

Overview

A unique collaboration between a Cistercian monk and a scholar of Islamic translation, this volume offers fresh and distinctive interpretations of works by the spiritual Sufi poet, Hafiz of Shiraz. Combining scholarly precision with keen sensitivity to the mystic contours of the Persian originals, these esoteric verses are rendered into English without forfeiting the artistry or accuracy of the original intent. Knitting together aesthetics and erudition, each poem seeks to be intellectually stimulating and spiritually invigorating. Generated through conversation and exchange, and supplemented with reflective introductions and notes, these poetic translations provide an authentic means of crossing religious and cultural borders, admitting contemporary audiences into the world of Persian Sufism.

Reviews

Jeffrey Einboden’s ‘The Genesis of Weltliteratur: Goethe’s West-östlicher Divan and Kerygmatic Pluralism’ was named by Oxford University Press as one of the ‘100 Seminal Articles’ published in the history of the press. From a field of over eight hundred thousand articles, representing every academic discipline, OUP distinguished Einboden’s study of Goethe and Hafiz in 2006, with the Oxford Editorial Board publishing the following review: This essay neatly captures the direction which the study of literature and religion has recently taken: towards a more plural understanding both of the cultural expression we call literature, and of the highly productive confrontation between religious traditions. It also raises critical questions about the labels we employ, particularly ‘West’ and ‘East’, and makes the discussion of 18th and 19th century European encounters with extra-biblical scripture especially relevant to our present postcolonial, globalized, and war-torn world. Quoted from: 100 seminal papers from Oxford Jounals,

Author Biography

Hafiz was a professor of religious studies and a poet. Jeffrey Einboden is an assistant professor at Northern Illinois University and the author of Composing a Persian Letter: Simin Daneshvar’s Rendition of Hawthorne and Washington Irving in Muslim Translation: Revising the American Mahomet. He lives in DeKalb, Illinois. John Slater is a poet who has been published in Brink Magazine, Drunken Boat, and Queen’s Quarterly. He is a Cistercian monk and is pursuing a graduate degree in theology at Catholic University of America. He lives in Piffard, New York.