A thief in the dark stares at a painting brings together a selection of poems by the most important contemporary Persian-language poets from around the world in the 21st century. It is the follow-up volume to the volume published by our publishing house Hold out at night until the wine to understand, which contains a selection of Persian poetry of the 20th century. A thief in the dark stares at a painting not only contains poems by Iranian poets, but also sets itself the task of reflecting the cross-border function of a literary lingua franca, which Persian has always had, in the selected poems. In this sense, not only Iranian authors are represented, but also the poems of Tajik and Afghan poets as well as those of aerial root writers who write in Persian.

Translated from the Persian and edited by Ali Abdollahi and Kurt Scharf

lyric | 1st edition 2021 | Hardcover with dust jacket | 410 pages