Cambridge Scholars Publishing Quatrains of Omar Khayyam, Astronomer-Poet of Persia: Metamorphosis of Nothingness

Omar Khayyam (11th-12th centuries CE), a celebrated polymath, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher is best known as a Persian poet and author of the Rubā‘iyāt, but his validity as a poet is highly debated. To address this, this book focuses on 100 quatrains that have been authenticated by three known Persian authorities. To bring out Khayyam’s voice, inner feelings and thoughts, this unique bilingual volume provides the Persian originals side-by-side with their literal translations in English. This serves to bring the reader closer to the originals, and allows them to make connections and draw conclusions according to their time and place in life. Review "In this volume of selected Khayyam quatrains, Dr. Mitra Ara, a native speaker of Persian, presents a fresh, literal and direct translation, true to the original Persian and more contributive of meaning than is found in other translations. She allows the original voice and expressions of the mathematician, astronomer, and poet Khayyam to be experienced unedited, enabling the reader to hear the scientist’s anguish and frustration over the unattainable secrets of creation and existence." --Professor Jaleh Pirnazar, Department of Near Eastern Studies, University of California, Berkeley About the Author Mitra Ara is a cultural historian and Professor of Persian and Iranian Studies, and Founding Director of the Persian Studies program in the College of Liberal and Creative Arts at San Francisco State University, USA. She is the author of Eschatology in the Indo-Iranian Traditions: The Genesis and Transformation of a Doctrine (2008); A Lexicon of the Persian Language of Shiraz (2017); Systematic Guide to Reading and Writing Persian Language (2018); and Do You See What I See (I and II, 2020), in addition to articles, conference presentations, and public speeches. She has been formally recognized for her work in changing the environment of Iranian and Persian studies in public universities and contributing to the scholarship of West Asian studies.