In his new collection of poems, Dick Davis, the acclaimed author of Belonging, addresses themes that he has long worked with--travel, the experience of being a stranger, the clash of cultures, the vagaries of love, the pleasures and epiphanies of meaning that art allows us. But A Trick of Sunlight introduces a new theme that revolves around the idea of happiness--is it possible, must it be illusory, is its fleetingness an essential part of its nature so that disillusion is inevitable? Many of the poems are shaded by the poet's awareness of growing older, and by the ways that this both shuts down many of life's possibilities and frees us from their demands. The levity of some verses here is something of a departure for Davis, but his insights can be mordant too, revealing darknesses as often as they invoke frivolity. As Davis's readers have come to expect, the poems in A Trick of Sunlight aim at the aesthetic satisfactions that accompany accurate observations expressed with wit, intelligence, and grace. But they achieve as well an immediacy and rawness of vision that seem to belie his careful craft.

There are worlds within our own in which even the smallest victories are hard won, the tender moment is almost unbearable, and the understated rings like a bell. "Belonging," a new collection by British poet Dick Davis, is an extended visit to these worlds.
Deepened by his dry wit and the formal rigor of his verse, the poems of "Belonging" negotiate their way among personal and political divides -- generations in a family, man and woman, and the tentative present and our inherited pasts.
But behind much of the writing there is also a desire for a kind of idealized belonging -- to a clerisy of civilized and humane decency which can be found intermittently in all cultures and is the monopoly of none. Davis's own cosmopolitan background provides the context for many of the poems, yet he is concerned always to find the humanly universal within the local and anecdotal -- a hope realized in these careful and incandescent poems.

With recent attention from The New Yorker and a big increase in sales, it's clear Ginzburg's work still resonates with readers. A fresh new package and layout will appeal to established fans and attract new readers. Will include a new foreword or introduction, author TK.

A pioneer in the financial media, Dick Davis has interacted with the investing public for over forty years. With his new book, he continues this trend. The first part of "The Dick Davis Dividend" contains an easy-to-read, yet profound discussion of the essentials of investing--focusing on the savvy veteran's often unconventional, core beliefs. While the second part of this engaging guide makes a compelling case for combining both passive investing via index funds and active investing via stocks and mutual funds.

A classic Persian tale of war and forbidden love in the eleventh century
Believed by scholars to be the inspiration for "Tristan and Isolde, Vis and Ramin" was written between 1050 and 1055 and is considered the first epic Persian romance. At the heart of the story is Vis, daughter of the queen of Mah and promised to Mobad, King of Marv. Against a background of court intrigue, broken promises, and open conflict, Vis finds herself escorted to her future husband by his brother, Ramin-an impetuous prince who cannot help falling in love with his charge and jeopardizing the fate of two realms. "Vis and Ramin," a masterpiece of psychological perceptiveness, is an epic with timeless appeal.

An incredible collection of verse by women poets writing in Persian, many translated into English for the first time From Iran and India, to Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, from princesses and entertainers to anonymous wives and daughters, The Mirror of My Heart displays the extraordinary breadth of women writing in Persian. The 83 poets included in this collection - many translated here for the first time - traverse a thousand years: from Rabe'eh and her surprisingly sensual writing in the ninth century, to the powerful verse of Fatemeh Ekhtesari in the twenty-first.

Dick Davis, "our pre-eminent translator from the Persian" (Washington Post) has revised and expanded his highly-praised translation of Ferdowsi's masterpiece, including more than 100 pages of newly translated text. Davis's elegant combination of prose and verse allows the poetry of the Shanameh to sing its own tales directly, interspersed sparingly with clearly-marked explanations to ease along modern readers. Among the greatest works of world literature, this prodigious narrative, composed by the poet Ferdowsi in the late tenth century, tells the story of pre-Islamic Iran, beginning in the mythic time of creation and continuing forward to the Arab invasion in the seventh century.

One of the great works of Persian literature in a masterful new translation Called 'the Romeo and Juliet of the East' by Lord Byron, Layli and Majnun is a classic tale of forbidden love that gained widespread popularity following its depiction in this twelfth-century narrative poem. Much like the lovers in the Shakespearean classic, Layli and Majnun's star-crossed lovers have become icons of both Persian literature and popular culture thanks to Nizami's accessible narrative poem, which is translated here in rhyming couplets by the acclaimed poet and scholar of Persian literature Dick Davis.

Consisting of a group of stories bound together by a pilgrimage, this great twelfth-century poem is an allegorical rendering of the Way of the Sufi—the secretive and paradoxical form of Islamic mysticism.

This is the fourteenth volume from Between The Lines, and it marks an interesting departure from the previous thirteen, featuring as it does three poets, not just one, each of whom is rather younger than the poets appearing in the earlier books. Though younger each has a claim to being called "senior," having a long list of highly regarded publications behind them, and a number of coveted honors and awards to his/her name. The three poets have been questioned at length about their life and their work by three distinguished poet-critics: Clive Wilmer, Isaac Cates, and Cynthia Haven. Their carefully meditated responses will be helpful to the general reader and the specialist alike. The three poets interviewed are Tim Steele, who teaches at California State University, Dick Davis, who teaches at Ohio State University, and Rachel Hadas, who teaches at Rutgers University.

Shahrokh Meskoob was one of Iran's leading intellectuals and a preeminent scholar of Persian literary traditions, language, and cultural identity. In The Ant's Gift, Meskoob applies his insight and considerable analytical skills to the Shahnameh, the national epic of Iran completed in 1010 by the poet Abul-Qasem Ferdowsi. Tracing Iran's history from its first mythical king to the fall of the Sasanian dynasty, the Shahnameh includes myths, romance, history, and political theory. Meskoob sheds new light on this seminal work of Persian culture, identifying the story as at once a historical and poetic work. While previous criticism of the Shahnameh has focused on its linguistic importance and its role in Iranian nationalism, Meskoob draws attention to the work's pre-Islamic cultural origins.

The most beloved Iranian novel of the twentieth century
"God forbid, I've fallen in love with Layli!" So begins the farce of our narrator's life, one spent in a large extended Iranian family lorded over by the blustering, paranoid patriarch, Dear Uncle Napoleon. When Uncle Napoleon's least-favorite nephew falls for his daughter, Layli, family fortunes are reversed, feuds fired up and resolved, and assignations attempted and thwarted.
First published in Iran in the 1970s and adapted into a hugely successful television series, this beloved novel is now "Suggested Reading" in Azar Nafisi's "Reading Lolita in Tehran. My Uncle Napoleon is a timeless and universal satire of first love and family intrigue.

Iran's national epic, the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi, has traditionally been regarded by both Persians and Westerners as a poem celebrating the the central role of monarchy in Persian history. In this groundbreaking book, Dick Davis argues that the poem is far more than a patriotic chronicle of kingly deeds. Rather, it is a subtle and highly ambiguous discussion of authority, and far from being a celebration of monarchy, its most famous episodes and heroes amount to a radical critique of the institution. Davis demonstrates that the public world of kingly authority is shadowed in the poem by a series of tragic father-son relationships, and that in both the royal and familial spheres, authority figures are invariably presented as morally inferior to those whom they govern. The Shahnameh's complex aesthetic structure and its tragic resolution of problems of authority and hierarchy make it an artistic artifact able to take its rightful place beside the major masterpieces of world literature.

"The Legend of Seyavash begins with the stuff of romance--a foreign girl of royal blood, found as a fugitive and introduced into the king's harem, gives birth to a son, Seyavash, who is raised not by his father the king, but by the great hero Rostam. Upon his return home from Rostam's tutelage, he is betrayed by his stepmother, Sudabeh, who attempts to seduce him and punishes him with a trial by fire when he spurns her. Seyavash is victorious in his trial, and goes on to successfully battle Iran's rival. Turan, concluding a truced with the Turanian king, Afrasyab, on amicable terms. But Seyavash's father, Kavus, insists that Seyavash surrender the Turanian hostages to slaughter, and with a conflicted conscience and no one to turn to, Seyavash flees to the Turanian court, where he is first given safe harbor, but is once again abandoned, murdered by the king's jealous brother. The Legend of Seyavash comes from the middle section of Ferdowsi's "Shahnameh, and presents a world of warfare between Iran and its neighbors. The epic style--with its paeans to loyalty, military prowess, and bravery, and its dichotomy between the forces of good and evil--is in full bloom. But here, as an episode of the Shahnameh which seems to receive more of Ferdowsi's attention, "The Legend of Seyavash achieves a psychological complexity, in Seyavash's struggles with his various father-figures, with his surrogate family, and ultimately with his own sense of loyalty conscience, and fate. The heroic action in The Legend of Seyavash is matched by Ferdowsi's acute and ethical insights into the individual's struggle between conscience and familial loyalty, easting Seyavash as not only an epic figures but a tragic oneas well.

Shahrokh Meskoob was one of Iran's leading intellectuals and a preeminent scholar of Persian literary traditions, language, and cultural identity. In The Ant's Gift, Meskoob applies his insight and considerable analytical skills to the Shahnameh, the national epic of Iran completed in 1010 by the poet Abul-Qasem Ferdowsi. Tracing Iran's history from its first mythical king to the fall of the Sasanian dynasty, the Shahnameh includes myths, romance, history, and political theory. Meskoob sheds new light on this seminal work of Persian culture, identifying the story as at once a historical and poetic work. While previous criticism of the Shahnameh has focused on its linguistic importance and its role in Iranian nationalism, Meskoob draws attention to the work's pre-Islamic cultural origins.

A giant of world literature, an eloquent princess, a dissolute satirist -- these are the three voices translated from fourteenth-century Persian by Dick Davis in Faces of Love. Together, they represent one of the most remarkable literary flowerings of any era. All three -- Hafez, Jahan Malek Khatun, and Obayd-e Zakani -- lived in Shiraz, a provincial capital in south-central Iran, and all drew support from arts-loving rulers at a time better known for invasions and political violence. Love was a frequent subject of their work: spiritual as well as secular, in varieties embracing every aspect of the human heart. They could hardly have been more different. Hafez -- destined to win fame throughout the world -- wrote lyrical poetry that was subtle, elusive, and rich in ambiguity. Jahan -- largely forgotten until recent decades -- was a privileged princess who could evoke passion, longing and heartbreak with uncanny power. (As Davis says: "To have this extraordinary poets fascinating and often very beautiful poems emerge from six hundred years of virtual oblivion seems almost miraculous") Obayd -- a satirist and truth-teller -- celebrated every pleasure of the flesh in language of astonishing and occasionally obscene honesty.

In his new collection of poems, Dick Davis, the acclaimed author of Belonging, addresses themes that he has long worked with - travel, the experience of being a stranger, the clash of cultures, the vagaries of love, the pleasures and epiphanies of meaning that art allows us. But A Trick of Sunlight introduces a new theme that revolves around the idea of happiness - is it possible, must it be illusory, is its fleetingness an essential part of its nature so that disillusion is inevitable? Many of the poems are shaded by the poet's awareness of growing older, and by the ways that this both shuts down many of life's possibilities and frees us from their demands. The levity of some verses here is something of a departure for Davis, but his insights can be mordant too, revealing darknesses as often as they invoke frivolity. As Davis's readers have come to expect, the poems in A Trick of Sunlight aim at the aesthetic satisfactions that accompany accurate observations expressed with wit, intelligence, and grace. But they achieve as well an immediacy and rawness of vision that seem to belie his careful craft.

In "Borrowed Ware, poet and translator Dick Davis brings together a collection of epigrams by poets from the "classic" period of Persian literature. It makes a fascinating introduction to a literature that is little known in the West, and incidentally provides insight into a vanished and extraordinary way of life. Davis's prodigious scholarship of Persian poetry has enabled him to select a wide range of poems, from both famous and little-known poets. The result is some to the best English translations of Persian poetry ever. Davis has maintained exceptional faithfulness to the original Persian while recasting the poems grace and drive in English. The book also contains a lucid and entertaining introduction, and informative notes on each of the sixty-eight poets whose work is included. Each poem is faced by the text in delicate Persian "nasta'liq calligraphy by Amir Hossein Tabnak