Volume 6 | Issue 1 | April - May
2012 |
Manavaz Alexandrian - Poet and translator
Manavaz Alexandrian
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PUBLISHED WORKS:
- Translated and published contemporary collection of poems for about dozen Iranian women.
- Naghmehay-e Taze-ye Chang (The Sound of the New Lyre), bilingual Persian/English translation of selected poems from 42 avant-garde contemporary Iranian poets, 478, pages.
- Translation of Another Birth and Let's Believe in the Beginning of the Cold Season" from Forugh Farrokhzad.
- Abridged versified translation of Fariduddin Attar's Conference of the Birds
- Translation of selected contemporary Iranian poetry from 60 contemporary poets
- "Memoirs of Life". This is narration in verse of my life in couplets, sextets and octaves - about my childhood, education, employment, travels, revolution and the war – 44500 words.
- Hajji Baba Reborn. In the course of 4 years I have versified the adventures of Hajji Baba of Isfahan, in couplets, sextets and octaves. The story is about a barber who rises to very high rank by ingenuity and trick and describes the customs and beliefs of Iranian people two centuries ago - about 100000 words.
- Translation of 100 odes from Rumi into quartets,
- Unabridged translation of Attar's Conference of the Birds in prose and verse (60000 words)
- The quatrains of Omar Khayyam and Baba Taher, poems of Iranian classic poets (mostly mystic) into verse. 8. About 200 child stories translated by me has been published by Nashr-e Shabaviz, Tehran
- Behindhand, Tahere Abdi, 230000 words, fiction. An anonymous
An oil rich country in the Balkans is colonized by international powers and its oil looted. A man with criminal ancestors is changed to a brutal dictator of the country. He stars an unprovoked war with a neighboring country and commits big genocide, and is driven to the brink of madness. - Buried country, Banafshe Hejazi, 29,000 words, fiction. An old college sinks and completely disappears from view. Aref whose mistress is trapped in the mysterious abyss discovers the buried college or community after months of search. The professors and students are governed by fanatic guards who secretly kill them to survive because the food is running short. Aref's mistress has lost her senses under torture and is treated as a whore.
- Montmatre District Pension by actress Mahnaz Ansarian. A Muslim, a Christian, a Jew and Zoroastrian girl from Iran gather in the Pension in Paris to tour the city. All of them respect each other's faith and Difference of religious creeds doesn't taint their friendship. They all miss their homeland and as they grew intimate each relates her love story in good humor and spirit of fellowship.
His translations of Iranian Classic Poetry
Two poems from Molana Jalaleddin Rumi
Hazrat Mawlana Jalaluddin Mohammad Rumi (30 September 1207 – 17 December 1273) is a 13th-century Persian poet, jurist, theologian and Sufi mystic. He is one of the greatest saints in Islamic history and is well-known in the West for his Sufi poetry, especially his treasury of couplets entitled Masnavi Sharif.
If you see my coffin to the grave taken
Deem not I regret for a life forsaken.
Weep not for me, nor mourn or say, "Alas!
He is head. If Satan wins you it is a loss.
Say not adieu when you see my dead body
For at that moment I'll joint my Divine Beauty.
Say not farewell when you put me in the tomb
For the grave is gateway to the Lord's kingdom.
Say not goodbye if you see one sinking down
What harm has caused the setting of the sun?
You may think it set; but no it the time to rise;
When the tomb jails you, it lets you soul soar the skies.
Do know you a planted seed which hasn't grown?
Why then suspect the buried is for ever gone?
What pail has returned empty when to the well it is thrown?
Why the Joseph of spirit must for the dingy well groan?
Shut your mouth at this end; open at the other end;
For in the placeless domain your cry shall ascend.
Listen to the Reed(from Masnivi)
The Masnavi, Masnavi-I Ma'navi), also written Mathnawi, Ma'navi, or Mathnavi, is an extensive poem written in Persian by Rumi .It is one of the best known and most influential works of both Sufism and Persian literature. The Masnavi is a series of six books of poetry that each amount to about 25,000 verses or 50,000 lines. It is a spiritual writing that teaches Sufis how to reach their goal of being in true love with God.
Listen to the reed, cut from its native wood,
I am a reed which grieves for its neighborhood
On the day I was torn from my native haunt,
Men and women wept for my fatal wound;
I seek a bleeding heart, from its lover torn,
To sing of the departed bliss and to mourn.
I lamented my grief at every town,
I sought the merry and unhappy man:
Each tried his wit his friendship to impart,
But none discovered the secret of my heart.
My secret is interpreted in my sigh,
Yet none hears, none sees with a knowing eye.
My lays are burning fire, no empty air,
If you're void of the flame, die in despair!
This is the passion's flame that burns the pipe,
This is the love's fire that makes the wine ripe;
The flute a bloody episode does sing,
The flute tells of Majnun's love and yearning.
None hears my secret but one who share not,
The ear listens to the lay but hears not.
If the sea is compressed into the pitcher,
Shall it quench your thirst, you greedy vulture!?
The greed of the voracious has no end,
No pearl's made if the shell is not content.
If love attacks and penetrates your heart,
Greed and malice for ever shall depart.
Rejoice my love and my Heavenly Friend,
Who for all diseases a cure can send:
You elevate our name, humble the men,
Our learned Plato and our Wise Galen;
For Your love Mohammad the heaven soared,
For Your light Mount Sinai danced and roared.
If God forsakes you, you may chatter,
But you shall be dumb and void of matter;
It is love that animates, a lover's dead,
A kindled lamp gives the light, not the shed.
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Manavaz Alexandrian - Manavaz Alexandrian, is a poet, writer, and a translator of literary works (Persian to English); he lives in Tehran, Iran. Alexandrian's translations include over hundred odes from Rumi rendered in quartets, translation of other classic poets, translation of more than 60 contemporary poets , quotations from translation of modern Iranian novels, an introduction to Iranian literature.