In Mahmud Kianush’s eyes, poetry lies at the very heart of human communication. He believes that the first human beings began to understand themselves, the world around them and the mysteries of the universe by their poetical interpretations of everything they saw and felt, and this is what real poets have always done and will always do. He agrees with the ancient idea that ‘man is a political animal’, but he adds that man must remain faithful to his primordial nature and first be a poet.
The Amber Shell of Self is the second Rockingham Press collection written in English by this remarkable Iranian poet, following his 2004 work Of Birds and Men: Poems from a Persian Divan.
Mahmud Kianush took early retirement from the Iranian civil service in 1974, and two years later moved to London with his wife and children. In Iran, he has published fourteen books of poems, five collections of short stories and six books of literary criticism. He is also the translator into Persian of many authors, including D.H. Lawrence, Samuel Beckett and John Steinbeck. He edited and translated the anthology Modern Persian Poetry (Rockingham Press, 1996).
The Amber Shell of Self is the second Rockingham Press collection written in English by this remarkable Iranian poet, following his 2004 work Of Birds and Men: Poems from a Persian Divan.
Mahmud Kianush took early retirement from the Iranian civil service in 1974, and two years later moved to London with his wife and children. In Iran, he has published fourteen books of poems, five collections of short stories and six books of literary criticism. He is also the translator into Persian of many authors, including D.H. Lawrence, Samuel Beckett and John Steinbeck. He edited and translated the anthology Modern Persian Poetry (Rockingham Press, 1996).