Dick Davis was born to English and Italian parents in 1945 and educated at King's College, Cambridge (B.A. and M.A. in English Literature). In 1970 while pursuing a career in poetry and literature and teaching in Greece he visited a friend in Iran. While there, he fell ill and was nursed to health by a Persian woman, whom he eventually married. Davis fell in love with the country as well, and stayed for eight years, learning Persian and teaching at the University of Tehran. After the revolution in 1979 the Davis family returned to England where he pursued his love of the Persian language, earning his Ph.D. in Medieval Persian Literature from the University of Manchester.
Since then, he has emerged as the foremost translator of Persian as well as having published numerous volumes of his own poetry to critical acclaim, including:A Trick of Sunlight: Poems; Belongings: Poems; Touchwood; A New Kind of Love; Devices and Desires; and Covenant. He is currently professor of Persian at Ohio State University and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His translations from Persian include Fakhraddin Gorgani's Vis and Ramin (Mage 2008), Rostam: Tales of Love and War from Persia's Book of Kings (Mage 2007); Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings (Mage, 1998-2004; Viking, 2006; Penguin Classics, 2007); Borrowed Ware (Mage, 1997); Iraj Pezeshkzad's My Uncle Napoleon (Mage, 1996; Modern Library, 2005); The Legend of Seyavash(Mage 2004) and with Afkham Darbandi, Farid al-Din Attar's The Conference of the Birds (Penguin Classics, 1984).
Contact Dick Davis via e-mail.
Since then, he has emerged as the foremost translator of Persian as well as having published numerous volumes of his own poetry to critical acclaim, including:A Trick of Sunlight: Poems; Belongings: Poems; Touchwood; A New Kind of Love; Devices and Desires; and Covenant. He is currently professor of Persian at Ohio State University and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His translations from Persian include Fakhraddin Gorgani's Vis and Ramin (Mage 2008), Rostam: Tales of Love and War from Persia's Book of Kings (Mage 2007); Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings (Mage, 1998-2004; Viking, 2006; Penguin Classics, 2007); Borrowed Ware (Mage, 1997); Iraj Pezeshkzad's My Uncle Napoleon (Mage, 1996; Modern Library, 2005); The Legend of Seyavash(Mage 2004) and with Afkham Darbandi, Farid al-Din Attar's The Conference of the Birds (Penguin Classics, 1984).
Contact Dick Davis via e-mail.
