The veil and the self: Attar in a time of reckoning

Fariduddin Mohammad Attar Nishapuri lived between the 12th and 13th centuries in Nishapur, a major city in the Khorasan province of present-day northeastern Iran.

- Sadaf Fatima

The Conference Bird Attar

He stands among the greatest voices of classical Persian poetry. His Mantig ut-Tair (The Conference of the Birds) remains one of the most renowned allegorical works in the Sufi tradition. It shaped the imaginative world of Jalaluddin Rumi, who recognised Attar as a precursor.

To return to Attar now is to encounter not a distant figure but a voice that still speaks with clarity. Sholeh Wolpé’s The Invisible Sun brings that voice into contemporary English with careful reflection and discipline.

Wolpé is an Iranian-born poet, playwright, and librettist with a wide body of work. Her earlier translations include The Conference of the Birds and Sin: Selected Poems of Forugh Farrokhzad.

She belongs to a generation shaped by the Shah’s modernisation project and moves with ease in a cosmopolitan world. The Revolution of 1979 marked a decisive rupture for her.