This book, written by a team of experts from many countries, provides a comprehensive account of the ways in which translation has brought the major literature of the world into English-speaking culture. Part I discusses theoretical issues and gives an overview of the history of translation into English. Part II, the bulk of the work, arranged by language of origin, offers critical discussions, with bibliographies, of the translation history of specific texts (e.g. the Koran, the Kalevala), authors (e.g. Lucretius, Dostoevsky), genres (e.g. Chinese poetry, twentieth-century Italian prose) and national literatures (e.g. Hungarian, Afrikaans).

Shaykh Mushrifuddin Sa'di of Shiraz finished his collection of moral tales in 1258 AD, and over the centuries it has been one of the most widely read and influential books in the Persian sphere. The first English translation was during the 18th century; Wheeler M. Thackston (Persian, Harvard U.) presents a new edition and new translation on facing pages. Written by Sa'd of Shiraz (c. 1200-c.1290), the Gulistan is probably the best-known nonreligious text in all of Persian literature. A baggy collection of anecdotes, short didactic tales, maxims, and bits of wise advice, it is divided into eight broad chapters of mixed prose and verse that view life through an Islamo-Persian lens. Sa'd's fame is due less to the content, which is conventional wisdom, than to his brilliant style, which combines great concision with puns, rhymed prose, and wordplay exploiting the full range of Persian rhetoric in a manner that Persians call something like "impossible simplicity," irreproducible in English.

One of greatest Persian writers of both classical prose and poetry, Sa‘di was revered in his time as a man of great wisdom and passion. Sometimes said to have lived over one hundred years, the body of his work was written in the thirteenth century. Filled with extracts of the poet’s melodious and insightful writing, and critical analysis thereof, this revealing biography examines why he was so idolised until the 1950s, and why since then he has fallen into relative obscurity. Focussing on the themes of both physical and spiritual love stitched through Sa‘di’s writing, as well as the impact of his many years travelling, Katouzian sheds a unique insight on who he calls 'the poet of life, love and compassion'.

Includes its Report, 1896-19 .