The Conference of the Birds

Attar

Sep 2021 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Fajer Al-Kaisi

About this audiobook

"These lofty words are an antidote/ for anyone sickened by extremism's poison." Considered by Rumi to be "the master" of Sufi mystic poetry, Attar is best known for this epic poem, a magnificent allegorical tale about the soul's search for meaning. He recounts the perilous journey of the world's birds to the faraway peaks of Mount Qaf in search of the mysterious Simorgh, their sovereign. Attar's beguiling anecdotes and humor intermingle the sublime with the mundane, the spiritual with the worldly, while his poem models the soul's escape from the mind's rational embrace. Sholeh Wolpe re-creates for modern audiences the beauty and timeless wisdom of the original Persian, in contemporary English verse and poetic prose.

Ratings and reviews

this is a beautiful! read and reread

About the author

Attar was a Persian poet, theoretician of Sufism, and hagiographer from Nishapur who had an immense and lasting influence on Persian poetry and Sufism.

Fajer Al-Kaisi is an actor for the stage and screen as well as an accomplished voice-over artist and narrator with over a hundred audiobook credits. He has been nominated for a Drama Leagues Award and was named an Audie Award finalist in 2015. He has also received several AudioFile Earphones Awards.

Sholeh Wolpe is an Iranian-American poet and writer. The author of more than ten books of poems, translations, and anthologies, she is the recipient of a PEN/Heim grant, the Midwest Book Award, and the Lois Roth Persian Translation prize, among others. Wolpe lives in Los Angeles.