Favorite Quotes: "The Conference of the Birds" by Farid Attar

Image of folio from Metropolitan
Museum of Art

Afkham Darbandi & Dick Davis translated from Persian into English Farid Attar's Mantiq al-Tayr (منطق الطير). The title they chose is The Conference of the Birds. The National Endowment for the Humanities included it in its Muslim Journeys Bookshelf.

There are several translations, and the copy I read included a prologue and an epilogue, which is a revised edition of the first Darbandi & Davis published translation. The ISBN is 9780140444346, and the length is 278 pages. I thought the prologue & epilogue were valuable.

To call Darbandi & Davis translators is quite a misnomer. Their rhyming couplets are so much more than translating.

I also read a picture book version by Rabiah/Alexis York Lumbard, which I hope to write a separate blog entry about.