Jalal al-Din Rumi, a towering figure in the Persian speaking world, is currently the most widely published poet in English translation. Yet despite the popularity of his verse, the majority of scholarship on his work focuses not on Rumi's poetry but on his contributions as a mystic. Keshavarz's pioneering study is the first extensive critical examination of this vast, dynamic body of literature. Through close readings of the Divan, his collection of more than 35,000 lyric verses, she explores Rumi's extraordinary popular and critical literary success.

Recite the Name of the Red Rose introduces Western readers to constructions of the sacred in twentieth-century Iranian poetry. Sifting through the lives and writings of modern and classical poets, Fatemeh Keshavarz provides a systematic examination of the array of religious impulses in recent Persian verse. Viewing poetry as the site of the emergence of the self and the sacred, she confirms that sanctification is not static in its forms but continuously in flux and that the poetic modes used to articulate the sanctified are equally fluid. Keshevarz begins by introducing the core concepts that...

In a direct, frank, and intimate exploration of Iranian literature and society, scholar, teacher, and poet Fatemeh Keshavarz challenges popular perceptions of Iran as a society bereft of vitality and joy. Her fresh perspective on present-day Iran provides a rare insight into this rich culture alive with artistic expression but virtually unknown to most Americans.

Keshavarz introduces readers to two modern Iranian women writers whose strong and articulate voices belie the stereotypical perception of Iranian women as voiceless victims in a country of villains. She follows with a...