Hafez Studies Center launches story writing festival

TEHRAN –(Iranart)- The Hafez Studies Center in Shiraz has organized a festival of story writing with the central theme of the great Persian poet Hafez.

“The festival aims to make the younger generation more familiar with the poetry and thoughts of Hafez and the ancient, original culture of the country,” the director of center Kavus Hassanli said in a press release published on Sunday.

“The center has organized varied programs. People derive a portion of their pride from their proud ancestors. Our history is a precious book whose golden pages cause the jealousy of other nations to arise,” he said.

“Today we have to make the best use of our precious cultural assets. Our great poet Hafez is a valuable treasure who has been praised by many contemporary world scholars,” he added.

“Fiction can be one of the ways to connect the young generation of today with the thoughts and poetry of Hafez, and we are planning to invite national writers to attend the festival with the central theme of Hafez,” he said.

Interested applicants are asked to submit their works to the Hafez Studies Center before August.

The stories written in Persian must be in connection with poetry, thoughts, life and time of Hafez.

Hafez, who is buried in his hometown Shiraz, is most famous for his Divan and among the many partial English translations of this work are those by Gertrude Bell and H. Wilberforce Clarke.

The extraordinary popularity of Hafez poetry in all Persian-speaking lands stems from his simple and often colloquial, though musical, language, free from artificial virtuosity, and his unaffected use of homely images and proverbial expressions.

source: Tehran Times