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Hafiz of Shiraz

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Hafiz's popularity today arises from the vogue for a quasi-Sufi mysticism of a 'New Age' variety. But Hafiz was not a religious teacher, but a professional poet, who used the same range of images to express love for an adolescent, mystical yearning, and the praise of some grizzled prince or vizier. The ambiguities in reference and meaning, and the variation between different stylistic registers, make him singularly difficult to translate. Very few of the available English versions are anything like adequate in conveying either the subtleties of meaning or the literary form of the originals. Of all the ones I have come across, this seems to me easily the best. Avery's participation ensures accuracy and authenticity, while Heath-Stubbs (a much respected writer of learned and often witty poetry) produces phrasing of exceptional vividness and vitality. The introduction is brief but very helpful. This book has been one of my favourite volumes of poetry in translation for forty years; its reappearance is a cause of celebration.
For those who can read French the perfect companion to this short English selection is the recent translation by Charles-Henri Fouchecour (you'll find it on amazon.fr under 'Hafez'), which offers a meticulously faithful but still readable translation of the whole Divan (486 poems) with full annotation, adding enormously to the accessibility of the work for a modern western reader.