Peter J. Chelkowski

Poet Nigar Hasan-Zadeh has chosen to discuss Nizami Ganjavi’s Mirror of the Invisible World: Tales from the Khamseh of Nizami, on FiveBooks (http://five-books.com) as one of the top five on her subject - Azerbaijan, saying that:

“…Nizami (1141-1209) is the greatest poet of Azerbaijan and one of the most significant poets in the whole of Asia. His poetry was written in Farsi. He invented the idea of Utopia in the 12th century and his poem ‘Leyla and Majnun’ has the roots of the Romeo and Juliet story in it. Apart from encapsulating 1,000 years of poetic tradition, he uses the most progressive thoughts, metaphors and symbols from the 12th century and you really feel connected to the time when you read him.

The full interview is available here: http://thebrowser.com/books/interviews/nigar-hasan-zadeh… (more)