The Tangled Braid Ninety-Nine Poems by Hafiz of Shiraz

A unique collaboration between a Cistercian monk and a scholar of Islamic translation, this volume offers fresh and distinctive interpretations of works by the spiritual Sufi poet, Hafiz of Shiraz. Combining scholarly precision with keen sensitivity to the mystic contours of the Persian originals, these esoteric verses are rendered into English without forfeiting the artistry or accuracy of the original intent. Knitting together aesthetics and erudition, each poem seeks to be intellectually stimulating and spiritually invigorating. Generated through conversation and exchange, and supplemented with reflective introductions and notes, these poetic translations provide an authentic means of crossing religious and cultural borders, admitting contemporary audiences into the world of Persian Sufism.

Hafiz was a professor of religious studies and a poet. Jeffrey Einboden is an assistant professor at Northern Illinois University and the author of Composing a Persian Letter: Simin Daneshvar’s Rendition of Hawthorne and Washington Irving in Muslim Translation: Revising the American Mahomet. He lives in DeKalb, Illinois. John Slater is a poet who has been published in Brink Magazine, Drunken Boat, and Queen’s Quarterly. He is a Cistercian monk and is pursuing a graduate degree in theology at Catholic University of America. He lives in Piffard, New York.