Cinema-friendly Shakespeare being translated into Persian

All the works by cinema-friendly Shakespeare are being translated into Persian for the first time in Iran.

Iranian scholar Ali Salami has embarked on translating Shakespeare’s collected works into Persian.

The translated works, which are being published by Mehrandish Books in bilingual editions, will include all plays and poems.

Salami says his translation comes as closely as possible to the style of the Bard and that he uses reliable texts for this purpose.

Hamlet is the first volume of the series, which the publisher has recently released in Iranian bookstores.

Each book is also accompanied by a scholarly essay by the translator. In order to deliver a precise translation, Salami collaborates with Iranian poet and translator Mehdi Sojoudi Moghaddam as an editor in the project.

So far ten plays have been translated and are being edited and prepared for publication.

Salami holds a Ph.D. in Shakespeare studies. In 2014, he organized and managed the First International Conference on Shakespeare in Iran at the University of Tehran, which was attended by leading Shakespeare scholars as well as the admirers of the Bard. The event which received wide coverage in Western media had Harvard scholar Stephen Greenblatt and Mark Thornton Burnett from Queens University as its keynote speakers.

Salami is the author of Shakespeare and the Reader (Illinois, 2013) and the editor of Culture-blind Shakespeare (New Castle 2016) and Fundamental Shakespeare (New Castle 2016).

Shakespeare has never ceased to fascinate Iranian readers and new translations of his works emerge every year in the country. Yet, this is the first time all his works are being translated into Persian by a veteran translator and a Shakespeare scholar.

Shakespeare has been widely adapted into film by various prominent directors, among them, Laurence Olivier, Akira Kurosawa, Grigori Kozintsev, Kenneth Branagh, Jack Gold, Trevor Nunn, Michael Radford, Orson Welles, Julie Taymor, Franco Zeffirelli, and many others.

In 2009, Iranian director Varuzh Karim-Masihi adapted 'Hamlet' for the screen under the title ‘Tardid (Doubt)’.

AI/AG