Kurt Scharf

Biography

Kurt Scharf was born in 1940 and was deputy director of the Goethe-Institut in Tehran and director of the Goethe-Institut in Porto Alegre, Istanbul and Lisbon. He is also a founding member of theHouse of World Cultures and worked there as head of the departmentLiterature, society, science. In addition to his work as an editor and translator of literature from Persian, Portuguese and Spanish, he works as a freelancer for literary publications such as the Lexicon of contemporary foreign-language literature, to theMetzler Lexicon of World Literature,Kindler's Literature Lexicon u.a..

Last Released

One cannot escape the verses of Omar Chayyām (1048 – 1131), the Persian poet, mathematician, philosopher and astronomer, they get under your skin. Inevitably, they confront us with the finiteness of our own lifetime. We do not know where we come from or where we are going. What we have is only the now, the moment. The selection of verses with a knowledgeable eye for their authenticity comes from the Iranian poet Hedāyat (1903 Tehran – 1951 Paris), whose poetic essay introduces the life and work of Chayyām.

Let's rejoice in today, because no one has seen tomorrow.

Translated from the Persian by Kurt Scharf

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