The First Flamenco in Samangan

In London, mid 2020, due to the Covid-19 Pandemic, I found some free time to reassemble and edit my translations of a collection of poems by Federico García Lorca. I asked a few poet friends whether I should publish them. They said, “Why not?” I asked, “Would anyone read them?!” They answered, “Probably.”

I have also dusted off my own most recent poems, most of which were originally written in English. Some could not be translated eloquently into Persian. A few poems were born in Persian and adamantly resisted translation into English. And, sometimes the refinement (if any) of the original English poems would have been lost in a literal translation. Hence, they remained largely as born – in English.

Poems with similar themes, whether written in Persian or English, are nevertheless conceptions born of a specific mood, milieu and ambiance. They are, therefore, different creations. I couldn’t bring myself to choose between a Persian or an English translation, or I would be forcing a text to adapt to the tyranny of another language. So, I kept both.

A number of friends contributed to Farsi and Pashto versions of this book. I am very grateful to every one of them. I would like to especially thank my dear friend Adrienne Ross for spending hours reading and editing the English manuscript, my colleague Sophie Drake for her valuable research and work on the first draft, and Alexander Poignant and Hashmat Sarvari for their keen efforts to put the manuscript together.

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