Ranges over more than seven centuries, and flows with surprises and delights, aching love poems and weird, cruel fables, and Thomas Browneian reflections on the nature of Flies, or the relations between mystics and elephants, all beguilingly rendered and scrupulously commented.
Marina Warner
Times Literary Supplement
Van Gelder's translations are pleasant and clear, which is no small feat, especially with poetry... A work that will be enjoyed by many scholars and lay readers.
Letizia Osti
Middle East Literatures
The perfect collection to launch the Library of Arabic Literatureof interest to the scholar, the student, and the general reader. Its coverage is excellent, both in terms of historical sweep and generic variety.
Richard Sieburth, Professor of Comparative Literature, New York University The translations of this volume are a marvel, and often a tour de forceprecise, highly readable and evocative, with the benefit of well-honed use of iambic and other rhythmic devices. Though Van Gelder reminds us that he is not a native English speaker, his English strikes me as no less superlative than, say, Nabokovs mastery of the language
The National
Van Gelder succeeds in maintaining a high standard for literary translation This anthology is remarkable in its attention to the intricate patterns of meter and rhyme in Arabic poetry and in its combination of familiar and unfamiliar texts. Highly recommended.
Choice
Promises to be an invaluable mine of knowledge for scholars and general readers who need an introduction to the universal appeal and validity of the enlightening and enlightened literary heritage of the Arabic-Islamic intellectual tradition.
Journal of Islamic Studies
By and large, this volume, and indeed the entire series, promises to be an invaluable mine of knowledge for scholars and general readers who need an introduction to the universal appeal and validity of the enlightening and enlightened literary heritage of the Arabic-Islamic intellectual tradition.
Journal of Islamic Studies