NEW POETRY from Miami University Press!

Hafez: Translations
and Interpretations of the Ghazals

Translation and Notes by Geoffrey Squires

$25.00 / 515 pgs - buy today!

Thought by many to be untranslatable, the great 14th century Persian poet Hafez, who has been celebrated by figures as different as Goethe, Emerson, and Bunting, has at last found the voice in English that he deserves. Geoffrey Squires, who lived in Iran for three years, gives powerful insight into that culture with these translations of the work of one of its iconic figures.

Based on 248 ghazals (just over half the Divan) this is one of the most comprehensive translations ever to appear and also one of the most varied, revealing aspects of the work -- courtly, lyrical, satirical, mystical -- that will surprise and delight many.

Squires brings a poet's ear to the task, capturing the energy, wit and beauty of the original which after all this time still speaks to us. He also breaks new ground in terms of translation strategy, using short interstitial prose pieces to punctuate and point the text. Detailed background notes are provided, and there is an extensive bibliography in Farsi, English and French.

Announcing the Winner of the Miami University Press Novella Contest

Miami University Press is delighted to announce the winner of its 2014 novella prize:

FOUNTAIN, by Elliot Hughes

In an unnamed city, columnist Pinson Charfo wakes one morning to find a strange note at his bedside from a Mr. Ralfo to a Mr. Cormill, neither of whom he knows . . . the first in a succession of odd clues that seem designed specifically for him to follow. As Charfo investigates further, pursuing increasingly absurd leads, he becomes embroiled in a peculiar mystery featuring plagiarized manifestos, occult societies, masquerade balls, the search for pornographic prints, and a busted fountain whose runoff forms an underground river beneath the city’s unsuspecting feet. Elliot Hughes’s FOUNTAIN is a detective story in the best metaphysical and metafictional sense, a comic tour de force set in a world of shifting signs and dreamlike insolubility.