Author Guide · Persian Poetry
Books Written by
On Yalda Night and at Nowruz, families across Iran open a book of poems at random and read the page as a sign of what is to come. The book is the Divan of Hafez, a poet who lived in Shiraz in the fourteenth century and took his pen name from a title for someone who knows the Qur’an by heart. He wrote under a succession of rulers, ending with Timur, and died in 1390, leaving a collection of fewer than 500 ghazals now accepted as genuine. Goethe read him in German and answered with a whole book of poems, the West-östlicher Divan (1819). In English, the bestselling “Hafiz” is not a translation at all. This guide covers his 10 key works and translations, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 10 key works and translations · 1390–2018 · Updated October 2026
ClickTap a spine to jump to that book below.
Quick answer
Hafiz wrote one book: the Divan, his collected poems, gathered after his death in 1390, with around 500 ghazals (495 in the standard Qazvini–Ghani edition). The key English translations run from Henry Wilberforce Clarke (1891) and Gertrude Bell (1897) to Peter Avery’s Collected Lyrics (2007) and Dick Davis’s Faces of Love (2012). Start with Faces of Love. Daniel Ladinsky’s popular books, such as The Gift, are his own poems, not translations.
Where to Start with Hafiz
If you want the best place to begin
→ Faces of Love (2012) — a poet’s translation made from the Persian.
If you want the whole Divan in English
→ The Collected Lyrics of Hafiz of Shiraz (2007) — one translator, all the ghazals.
If you want the classic Victorian translation
→ Poems from the Divan of Hafiz (1897) — rhymed verse, free to read online.
If you want the Persian text beside the English
→ Fifty Poems of Hafiz (1947).
10 Hafiz Works and Translations, in Order
Divan
His collected poems, gathered after his death. Manuscripts and editions vary from 573 to 994 poems, but fewer than 500 ghazals are generally accepted as his: 495 in the Qazvini–Ghani edition, 486 in Khanlari’s. The ghazals, short lyrics on wine, love and the beloved, are the heart of the book; there are also quatrains (ruba’i), odes and other forms. In Iran it is used for fal-e Hafez, divination by opening the book at random.
Henry Wilberforce Clarke: The Divan-i-Hafiz
An early English translation of the Divan, published in Calcutta in 1891 by Henry Wilberforce Clarke. It was reprinted by Ibex Publishers in 2007, and it is the translation Daniel Ladinsky worked from for his own “Hafiz” books.
Gertrude Bell: Poems from the Divan of Hafiz
Published by William Heinemann in London in 1897, before Gertrude Bell became known as a traveller and archaeologist in the Middle East. She translated a selection of ghazals into rhymed English verse and wrote a long introduction on Hafiz’s life, the politics of his Shiraz and Sufism. It is out of copyright and free on Project Gutenberg.
A. J. Arberry: Fifty Poems of Hafiz
The Cambridge orientalist Arthur J. Arberry printed fifty ghazals in Persian alongside English versions, some his own and some collected from earlier translators, with an introduction and notes. Published by Cambridge University Press in 1947, it is still used by readers who want to see the original beside the English.
Peter Avery and John Heath-Stubbs: Hafiz of Shiraz: Thirty Poems
Thirty ghazals translated by Peter Avery, later lecturer in Persian at Cambridge, working with the English poet John Heath-Stubbs. First published in 1952, it was reprinted in 2006. The two later translated the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam together (1979).
Elizabeth T. Gray Jr.: The Green Sea of Heaven
Fifty ghazals from the Divan, translated from the Persian by the American translator Elizabeth T. Gray Jr. and published by White Cloud Press in 1995.
Peter Avery: The Collected Lyrics of Hafiz of Shiraz
Avery’s translation of the ghazals of the Divan, published by Archetype in Cambridge in 2007, the year before his death. It won Iran’s Farabi prize.
Robert Bly and Leonard Lewisohn: The Angels Knocking on the Tavern Door
Thirty poems of Hafez, published by HarperCollins in 2008: a collaboration between the American poet Robert Bly and Leonard Lewisohn, a scholar of Persian Sufi poetry.
Dick Davis: Faces of Love: Hafez and the Poets of Shiraz
The English poet and translator of Persian Dick Davis sets poems by Hafez beside those of other poets of fourteenth-century Shiraz, in rhymed and metred English verse with an introduction on the city and its poetry. Published in 2012 and later in Penguin Classics. Davis has also written about the difficulty of the task in his essay “On Not Translating Hafez”.
Mario Petrucci: Beloved: 81 Poems from Hafez
Eighty-one poems from the Divan in contemporary English by the British poet Mario Petrucci, published by Bloodaxe Books in 2018.
In What Order to Read Hafiz
There is only one Hafiz book, and its poems can be read in any order, and none was dated. In English the real choice is between kinds of translation: rhymed verse (Bell, Davis), close scholarly versions (Arberry, Avery), and modern poets’ selections (Gray, Bly and Lewisohn, Petrucci).
A practical route is to start with a selection in good verse, then move to a complete translation once you know which poems you like, and keep one close version beside a freer one. Where they differ, you can see what each translator has added or let go.
A reading path
1. Faces of Love (2012), Dick Davis
2. Poems from the Divan of Hafiz (1897), Gertrude Bell
3. Fifty Poems of Hafiz (1947), Persian and English
4. The Collected Lyrics of Hafiz of Shiraz (2007), Peter Avery
5. Goethe’s West-östlicher Divan (1819), the poet’s reply
Loose Versions, and Books Inspired by Hafiz
Beyond the 10 key works and translations: 4 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Loose poems in Hafiz’s name (not translations)
3
3 books · 1996–2011
- 1996I Heard God LaughingLadinsky’s own poems inspired by Hafiz
- 1999The Gifthis best-known Hafiz book; see the FAQ
- 2011A Year with Hafizdaily readings in the same style
Inspired by Hafiz
1
1 book · 1819
- 1819West-östlicher Divana cycle of poems written after reading Hafiz in Joseph von Hammer’s German translation
The years · 1315–2012
Quick facts about Hafiz
- Known for
- Hafiz is known as the master of the Persian ghazal, whose poems of wine and love are read in Iran as both earthly and mystical, and whose Divan is still consulted as an oracle.
- 1315
- Born in Shiraz (date disputed)
- 1390
- Dies; his Divan is gathered
- 1819
- Goethe’s West-östlicher Divan
- 2012
- Faces of Love
- Full name
- Khwaja Shams-ud-Din Muhammad Hafez-e Shirazi; Hafez or Hafiz
- Born
- Around 1315 (dates from 1315 to 1325 are given), Shiraz
- Died
- 1390, Shiraz
- Language
- Persian
- Pen name
- Hafez: one who has learned the Qur’an by heart
- Tomb
- The Hafezieh in Shiraz; the present building was designed by André Godard in the late 1930s
- In Iran
- 12 October is Hafez Day
The red mark is 1390: Hafiz dies in Shiraz, and his poems are gathered into the Divan.
How Hafiz Wrote: The Ghazal
Hafiz worked almost entirely in the ghazal, a short lyric of rhyming couplets in strict Persian metre, and he names himself, “Hafez”, in the last couplet. Each couplet can stand on its own, and the jumps between them are part of the effect. The music of the rhyme and metre is the first thing lost in translation, which is why Dick Davis called one of his essays “On Not Translating Hafez”.
His images are wine, the tavern, the cupbearer, the rose and the nightingale, and a beloved who may be a person or God. Readers have argued for centuries over how literally to take the wine. Ralph Waldo Emerson, who called Hafez “a poet’s poet”, rejected the Sufi reading; many Persian readers hold both meanings at once.
His reach in the West began with Sir William Jones’s first English translation in 1771 and Joseph von Hammer’s German one, which led Goethe to write the West-östlicher Divan. Readers who come to Hafiz often come by way of Rumi, the other great Persian poet of love and longing, who lived a century earlier and also wrote ghazals.
Frequently asked questions about Hafiz’s books
How many books has Hafiz written?
One: the Divan, his collected poems, gathered after his death in 1390. Fewer than 500 ghazals are generally accepted as his (495 in the Qazvini–Ghani edition), with some quatrains and other poems. This page lists the Divan and nine key English translations, 10 in all.
What are Hafiz’s books in order?
There is only the Divan. The key English translations in order are Clarke (1891), Bell (1897), Arberry (1947), Avery and Heath-Stubbs (1952), Gray (1995), Avery (2007), Bly and Lewisohn (2008), Davis (2012) and Petrucci (2018).
Where should I start with Hafiz?
With Dick Davis’s Faces of Love (2012), verse translations made from the Persian. For the complete ghazals, go on to Peter Avery’s Collected Lyrics of Hafiz of Shiraz (2007).
What is Hafiz’s most famous book?
The Divan, his only book, one of the most loved works of Persian literature. In Iran it is used for fal-e Hafez, divination by opening it at a random page.
Are Daniel Ladinsky’s Hafiz books, like The Gift, real translations?
No. I Heard God Laughing (1996), The Gift (1999) and A Year with Hafiz (2011) are Ladinsky’s own poems inspired by Hafiz. Ladinsky does not read Persian, worked from Clarke’s 1891 English translation, and calls his work “interpretations and renderings”. In 1999, in The Poetry Project Newsletter, Murat Nemet-Nejat asked him to produce translations of specific ghazals and he could not. The scholar Christopher Shackle (2005) called The Gift “not so much a paraphrase as a parody of the wondrously wrought style of the greatest master of Persian art-poetry”; Aria Fani (2014) found little or no resemblance to Hafiz’s poems, and Omid Safi (2020) called it “erasure and spiritual colonialism”.
Which Hafiz translation is best?
It depends on what you want. For verse that reads well in English, Dick Davis (2012); for the complete ghazals, Peter Avery (2007); for the Persian beside the English, Arberry (1947); for a free classic, Gertrude Bell (1897).
Is it Hafiz or Hafez?
Both. Hafez is closer to modern Persian pronunciation; Hafiz is the older English spelling, used by Bell, Arberry and Avery. The name is a title for someone who has memorised the Qur’an, which he did as a young man.
Was Hafiz a Sufi, and is the wine real?
Hafiz is read in Iran both as a mystic and as a poet of earthly love and wine, and his poems support both readings. Ralph Waldo Emerson, an admirer, rejected the Sufi interpretation; others read the tavern and the beloved as images of God. Many readers hold both meanings at once.
What is fal-e Hafez?
Divination with the Divan: you make a wish or ask a question, open the book at random and read the poem as an answer. It is a custom especially at Nowruz and on Yalda Night, the longest night of the year.
Where is Hafiz buried?
In the Hafezieh, a garden tomb in Shiraz. A tomb was first built about twenty years after his death; the present pavilion was designed by the French architect André Godard in the late 1930s. Iran marks Hafez Day on 12 October.
Footnotes
- Hafez — Wikipedia
- The Divān of Hafez — Wikipedia
- Daniel Ladinsky — Wikipedia
- Peter Avery — Wikipedia
- West–östlicher Divan — Wikipedia
- Poems from the Divan of Hafiz, tr. Gertrude Bell (1897) — Project Gutenberg
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the poems are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“For it seemed that love was an easy thing, / But my feet have fallen on difficult ways.”
— Hafiz, the opening poem of Gertrude Bell’s Poems from the Divan of Hafiz (1897)
If this shelf interested you, the full bookshelf has more: reading lists by theme, author guides, and notes on what is actually worth your time.
Browse the full bookshelf Get book recommendations