Poetry
نهال
Not translated into English
Synopsis
Nahāl, the young sapling, brings together the Persian poems its author wrote from 1951 to 1965, with a preface by the linguist Ravan Farhadi. Partaw Naderi sees in it a slim book in which classical metres, ghazals and free verse with a regular measure stand side by side; its subjects are love and the memory of a beloved, the Afghan countryside, the lives of the poor and of widows, pride in the past and advice to young men.
Context
In 2011, Partaw Naderi devotes an article to “this fifty-year-old Nahāl”. He cites Farhadi's preface, which notes in the author a first manner in the Indian style, and judges that the book owes more to Nezami and Saadi than to Bidel; the swan poem, in free metre, keeps the rhyme. The years of publication are not given. Other books follow, Derakht, Khazān, Barg-hā-ye khazān, and a history of modern Afghanistan in verse.
Who it is for
Poems in Persian, untranslated. It is better to know a little of Nezami and Saadi, who are closer to him than Bidel.
Prizes and reception
No known prize. The critic Partaw Naderi ranks it among the Afghan pioneers of free verse.