Press

Reviews from the BBC

Persian Fiction in Exile    Mahmud Kianush's works     In a Slippery Bowl

Of Birds and Men - Poems from a Persian Divan by Mahmud Kianush

‘With my English poems, I want to greet the people of my second home in a simple language and let them know I am a Persian poet,’ says Mahmud Kianush. These are poems that don't shy away from embracing the spiritual as well as the physical, and there's a tender, precise sensuality I found really beguiling and engaging. In ‘Flamenco’ he writes:

‘And in his veins flow
The blood and milk
Of Anahita,
The goddess of Water.’

Catherine Smith
The Frogmore Press - No. 65, Spring 2005

Modern Persian Poetry

"... Though the work of some individual poets has been translated into English in recent years and published mainly in the USA, Kianush's volume is a much awaited book which fills a gap; it is the more comprehensive of the two anthologies which exist in English. An accomplished poet himself, Kianush's translations are well balanced and eloquent...One very refreshing aspect of this anthology is the presence of a good number of Women poets... Kianush has successfully carried over into English some of the music and lyricism of his originals and his informative introduction traces the development of contemporary Persian poetry from its inception to the present day..."

Parvin Loloi
Acumen Magazine, January 1997

"... All that makes it rather astonishing is that, amid the hundreds of books in English published about Iran, not one has been devoted to modern poetry. The gap has now been filled with a fascinating anthology of Persian poetry from the beginning of the 20th Century, featuring poems by 43 poets ... The books editor, like his fellow poets Esmail Khoi and Mehdi Saless ('M Omid'), comes from the north-eastern province of Khorasan, historically and culturally so important in the development of Persian Literature ... "

Anthony Hyman
South, The Global Business Magazine; December 1996
( Sadly, Anthony Hyman passed away in January 2000 )