Published Book

“ When the image and the poem from which it is taken are considered together, and the reader meditates on the connection, the words of Hafez come alive in an unexpected and gripping way. ” Robert Hillenbrand

Hafez (d. 1390) is Iran's premier and most quoted lyric poet. His status in his own country, and his universal appeal, can be compared with that of Shakespeare in the English-speaking world. The painter and printmaker Jila Peacock has chosen ten love poems from Hafez and following the footsteps of the great Islamic calligraphers, has produced ten shape-poems that sit by her own translations from the Persian. Accompanied by Robert Hillenbrand's erudite introduction and a foreword by Parvin Loloi, this book is an exceptional achievement, a celebration of the marriage between word and image.

The original limited handprint edition of this book forms part of the collection of many important institutions, among which are the British Museum, the Fitzwilliam Museum and the National Library of Scotland.

Available on-line at Sylph Editions, at the British Museum, British Library, Bodleian Library Oxford, V&A bookshops, and at selected retailers.

Editors: Joe Staines and Ahmed Khonsari

Nastalighe typesetting:Ahmad Khonsari

Design: Ornan Rotem

Printed in an edition of two-thousand by Die Keure, Brugge, on Munked Pure (text and cover) and Modigliana (dust jacket).

The Latin letters are set in Monotype Centaur, a marriage of two typefaces: the roman, designed by Bruce Bruce Rogers, is modelled on the 1469 Nicholas Jenson cut, while the italic was drawn by Frederic Warde who based his design on the celebrated chancery type of the sixteenth century Venetian calligrapher Ludovico degli Arrighi.

The Persian text was set by means of a dedicated vector-based drawing application that replicated nast'aliq, a style of calligraphy that developed in the fifteenth-century Shiraz.