A descriptive and analytical catalogue of Persian manuscripts in the library of the Wellcome Institute of Medicine (1986)
This is an excellent catalogue. […] To have catalogued so many manuscripts in this clear, consistent, well-organized and scholarly form is a great achievement and a great service to scholars working in Islamic medical history and related fields.
J.C. Bürgel
Reading Mystical Lyric: The Case of Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi (2004)
Jalāl al-Dīn Rumi, a towering figure in the Persian speaking world, is currently the most widely published poet in English translation. Yet despite the popularity of his verse, the majority of scholarship on his work focuses not on Rumi’s poetry but on his contributions as a mystic. Fatemeh Keshavarz’s pioneering study is the first extensive critical examination of this vast, dynamic body of literature. Through close readings of the Divan, his collection of more than 35,000 lyric verses, she explores Rumi’s extraordinary popular and critical literary success.
Refreshing and groundbreaking. Highly recommended for collections supporting coursework in Persian literature, Islamic mysticism, and mystical poetry in general
Choice Reviews
While Rumi’s Sufi teachings have long been the focus of scholarly study, much less attention has been given to the aesthetic and poetic dimensions of his work, and so this study of Rumi’s ghazals, or love lyrics, by Fatemeh Keshavarz breaks new and fertile ground
Journal of the American Oriental Society
It is refreshing to be offered a book which deals with Rumi the poet
Journal of Islamic Studies
Recite in the Name of the Red Rose: Poetic Sacred Making in Twentieth-century Iran (2006)
Recite the Name of the Red Rose introduces Western readers to constructions of the sacred in twentieth-century Iranian poetry. Sifting through the lives and writings of modern and classical poets, Fatemeh Keshavarz provides a systematic examination of the array of religious impulses in recent Persian verse. Viewing poetry as the site of the emergence of the self and the sacred, she confirms that sanctification is not static in its forms but continuously in flux and that the poetic modes used to articulate the sanctified are equally fluid.
Recite in the Name of the Red Rose is a compelling and provocative book. Fatemeh Keshavarz shifts focus away from the familiar binaries of religious/secular and modern/traditional to offer a multi-layered analysis of Iranian poetry and its inherent push and pull between continuity and change, compliance and resistance, mundane and spiritual. This is a welcome addition to the growing and exciting body of works on Iranian literature.
Farzaneh Milani
Fatemeh Keshavarz’s Recite in the Name of the Red Rose is a brilliant, lucid, and highly original study of the religious aspects of modern Persian literature. It is a breakthrough, not only in the sense that it creates a genuine cross-disciplinary fusion of religious studies and literary criticism, but also in the way that it brings about a dramatic revision of how we understand Persian literature in general.
Carl Ernst
Jasmine and Stars: Reading More than Lolita in Tehran (2009)
In a direct, frank, and intimate exploration of Iranian literature and society, scholar, teacher, and poet Fatemeh Keshavarz challenges popular perceptions of Iran as a society bereft of vitality and joy. Her fresh perspective on present-day Iran provides a rare insight into this rich culture alive with artistic expression but virtually unknown to most Americans.
Extremely valuable as a personal testimony of [Keshavarz’s] own experiences growing up in Iran and provides a counterbalance to Nafisi’s dark portrayal of her life in Iran. . . . Important . . . because of its active participation in the debate about how Western views of Middle Eastern countries are colored by prejudice and stereotyping.
Extremely valuable as a personal testimony of [Keshavarz’s] own experiences growing up in Iran and provides a counterbalance to Nafisi’s dark portrayal of her life in Iran. . . . Important . . . because of its active participation in the debate about how Western views of Middle Eastern countries are colored by prejudice and stereotyping.
Middle East Journal
Narrated in a very engaging and evocative style, embellished with poetic force. This personal story is told in a direct narrative form which transcends the boundaries of telling and showing.
Muslim World Book Review
It is not necessary to have read Reading Lolita in Tehran to appreciate the thrust of [Keshavarz’s] argument, which challenges the popular notion that Iran is an oppressive, joyless, intellectually stagnant place, particularly for women. . . . Controversial, certainly, but an excellent counterpoint for book-group discussions of Nafisi’s book
Booklist
Lyrics of Life: Sa’di on Love, Cosmopolitanism and Care of the Self (2015)
Lyrics of Life: Sa’di on Love, Cosmopolitanism, and care of the Self is an accessible study of the lyrical, humorous, and social and education aspects of classical Persian poetry through the ghazals of Sa’di of Shiraz (d.1291) the poet, traveller, and ethicist. In six chapters and on epilogue, the author focuses on Sa’di’s worldly wisdom, his cosmopolitan perspectives, his sense of humour, his ethical legacy, and the lyrical quality that has made his work immune to the ravishes of time. The study provides hundreds of verses in English translation in order to enable the reader to experience Sa’di’s poetic art first hand. The discussions emphasize the relation between this poetry and lived experience, the central communicative role of poetry in the medieval Muslim world and the elegance of the poetic language as a social tool for ethical and political education. At the same time, it describes, in fine details, the lyrical strategies that the poet used in order to keep his poetry fresh, lyrical, humorous and entertaining.
Sa’di is a poet for this age, and every age. And there is no better gateway to the rose garden of Sa’di’s magnificent world than the mind, the heart, and the pen of Fatemeh Keshavarz. Keshavarz situates Sa’di as a deeply humane voice, poetically lyrical, and ethically cosmopolitan. We are indebted to Professor Keshavarz for another masterful and lyrical work that opens up not just Sa’di, but a whole possibility of humanistic encounter with the pre-modern world. Recommended most enthusiastically for all who love literature, ethics, and cosmopolitanism.
Omid Safi