“The western cliché about Persian poetry is that it deals with roses, nightingales, wine, hyperbolic love-longing, an awareness of the transience of our existence, and a delicate appreciation of life’s fleeting pleasures. And so a great deal of it does. But there is another side to Persian verse, one that is satirical, sardonic, often obscene, one that delights in ad hominem invective and no-holds barred diatribes. Perhaps surprisingly enough for the uninitiated reader it is frequently the same poets who write both kinds of verse. Riccardo Zipoli’s Irreverent Persia is a splendidly comprehensive introduction to this fascinating and hitherto virtually ignored side of the Persian literary canon, providing a wealth of examples of the varieties of the genre in accurate and felicitous translations.”

Dick Davis, Ohio State University