The Conference of the Birds

by Attar, Sholeh Wolpe (Translator)

Overview

“These lofty words are an antidote for anyone sickened by extremism's poison.”Considered by Rumi to be “the master” of Sufi mystic poetry, Attar is best known for this epic poem, a magnificent allegorical tale about the soul’s search for meaning. He recounts the perilous journey of the world’s birds to the faraway peaks of Mount Qaf, in search of the mysterious Simorgh, their king. Attar’s beguiling anecdotes and humor intermingle the sublime with the mundane, the spiritual with the worldly, while his poem models the soul’s escape from the mind’s rational embrace.Sholeh Wolpé recreates for modern readers the beauty and timeless wisdom of the original Persian, in contemporary English verse and poetic prose.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393355543
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	04/17/2018
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Sholeh Wolpé is an Iranian-American poet and writer. Author of over ten books of poems, translations, and anthologies, she is the recipient of the PEN/Heim grant, the Midwest Book Award, and the Lois Roth Persian Translation prize, among others. Wolpé lives in Los Angeles.

What People are Saying About This

Coleman Barks

Attar, along with Chaucer and Dante, is a great genius of community and how that involves the path toward enlightenment. We are these bird-beings searching for the source of what we are together.

Editorial Reviews

What Sholeh Wolpé has done exceedingly well is to bring this medieval poem over into lively, contemporary English that feels absolutely right and not at all forced.

Edith Grossman

In Sholeh Wolpé’s version, this sly, knowing Sufi classic will surprise and delight a new generation of readers.

Jack Miles

Wolpé’s translation of this epic is sure to be as timeless as the masterpiece itself.

Reza Aslan

As close to the original a reader can come in translation, and imbued with the same kind of revelation, it makes clear why Attar remained such a strong influence on Rumi. The reader travels, along with the poet’s birds, to greater spiritual insight through transcendent verse.

Roger Sedarat

In this beautiful rendering of Attar’sConferenceoftheBirds, Sholeh Wolpe, herself a passionate poet, transports us to another time, another language & another world, while reminding us of how enduring and universal great works of imagination are, how they create spaces within which we not only acknowledge and appreciate our differences but also recognize and celebrate our shared humanity. Only a true poet could achieve such a feat.”

Azar Nafisi

Sholeh Wolpé, the most recent translator of Attar’s epic into English, writes in the foreword to her new version that 'the parables in this book trigger memories deep within us all. The stories inhabit the imagination, and slowly over time, their wisdom trickles down into the heart. The process of absorption is unique to every individual, as is each person’s journey. We are the birds in the story.' This is a plausible response to Attar’s pedagogic intentions. We are plainly meant as readers to identify ourselves (or at least our souls) with the birds.

New York Review of Books

Sholeh Wolpé’s stunning new translation—the first in over 30 years—renders Attar’s engaging, singular voice with wit and flourish.… Most importantly, Wolpé offers Attar’s masterwork not as a curiosity from a bygone age, but as a text of living wisdom whose message is always timely.

Literary Hub

The Conference of the Birdshas fascinated writers from Rumi to Borges, and Wolpé’s translation strives to make Attar’s unorthodox and mystical vision accessible to contemporary Western readers.”

Guernica

Sholeh Wolpé takes audiences on a journey through the soul’s search for meaning as she rediscovers the light of Attar, considered by Rumi to be the master of Sufi mystic poetry.”

Poets House