Dick Davis

Dick Davis was born in Portsmouth, England, in 1945, and educated at the universities of Cambridge (B.A. and M.A. in English Literature) and Manchester (PhD. in Medieval Persian Literature). He lived in Iran for 8 years (1970-1978), and also for some time in both Italy and Greece. He was Professor of Persian and Chair of the Department of Near Eastern Languages. and Cultures at Ohio State University from 2002 until 2012. As author, translator or editor, he has produced well over 20 books; as well as academic works these include translations from Italian and Persian, and a number of books of his own poetry (the most recent of which is At Home and Far from Home: Poems on Iran and Persian Culture, 2009). He is generally recognized as the finest living translator of Persian literature: his translations include Attar’s The Conference of the Birds (with Afkham Darbandi), a book of medieval epigrams (Borrowed Ware), Pezeshkzad’s My Uncle Napoleon, Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh, Gorgani’s Vis and Ramin, and most recently, Faces of Love: Hafez and the Poets of Shiraz.