The great fourteenth-century Persian poet Hafiz is noted for his mystical love poems. The poetry of Hafiz has reached new heights of popularity in the West, yet his poems have been translatred into European languages for over two hundred years. Hafiz is not a poet to be captured in a single translation. This modernised edition of McCarthy's elegant prose translation gives us a direct Hafiz, full of clear imagery and personal poetry.
I was born in 1966 in Penarth, Wales, and attended the University College of Swansea. I now live with my wife Tessa and son Dylan in Dublin, Ireland, after long stints in the London area and the Sierra Nevada foothills of California. I am the author of several books and articles on Gnosticism, early Christianity and esoterica. My books include A Dictionary of Gnosticism, The Gnostics: History * Tradition * Scriptures * Influence, The Lost Sayings of Jesus: Annotated & Explained, Gnostic Writings on the Soul: Annotated & Explained, and The Gospel of Philip: Annotated & Explained. I'm also editor of The Gnostic: A Journal of Gnosticism, Western Esotericism and Spirituality. I wrote the forewords for New Nightingale, New Rose, Poems From the Divan of Hafiz, The Quatrains of Omar Khayyam: Three Translations of the Rubaiyat, and Don't Forget: P.D. Ouspensky's Life of Self-Remembering by Bob Hunter. I've been studying the Gospel of Thomas and the Fourth Way teachings since the late 1980s, and have given a number of presentations and readings on the Gnostics and other esoteric and poetical works.
Current projects include biographies of Alan Moore and Rodney Collin, and perhaps a second book on the Gospel of Thomas.
