The Lois Roth Foundation has sponsored the Persian Translation Prize, juried by members of the American Institute of Iranian Studies (AIIrS), since 2001. The prize honors superlative translations into English of contemporary and ancient Persian texts on an annual basis.
For 2026, two winners were awarded, one in poetry and one in prose. In contrast to last year’s contemporary selections, this year both works take us back to 13th-century Persia and the golden age of Sufism—the mystical, spiritual dimension of Islam that focuses on inner transformation, ethical cultivation, and the direct experience of divine love—which shaped literature in Persian, Arabic, Turkish, and Urdu.
The prose translation by Alyssa Gabbay (Emerita, UNC Greensboro) of Exquisite Things and Strange Wonders (1294, Amir Khusraw Dihlavi) is a pathbreaking contribution to the field of Persian Studies and historical poetics more broadly. Dihlavi was a poet, historian, courtier, Sufi, and musician. Written in Persian in medieval India, this text was a lauded work that continues to resonate today. In it, Dihlavi defends poetry against its critics, especially religious scholars. Blending manifesto and autobiography, he recounts personal struggles and triumphs in a voice by turns aggrieved, proud, and humble, yet always commanding. The style of his prose is notoriously tricky and often dense. What makes Gabbay’s extraordinary translation so exquisite—a wonder in its own right—is how she has rendered the original in legible and clear English.
The prize for poetry went to the translation by Jawid Mojaddedi (Rutgers) of the sixth, and final volume of Rumi’s Masnavi. Rumi was a Persian poet and founder of the Mevlevi Sufi order. The Masnavi—his major work, comprising 26,000 verses in six books—is a masterpiece of classical Persian literature and is often referred to as “the Qur’an in Persian.” In rhymed couplets, it explores Sufi thought and mystical topics such as love and striving for union with the divine.
The complete work was last translated almost a century ago, with language that is outdated and risqué lines rendered in Latin. Mojaddedi’s new translation—faithful, in verse, and pleasurably readable—is the first English version of the entire text in our times and represents a 21-year labor of love. A prolific author in his own right, Mojaddedi also received the Persian Translation Prize for Volume One in 2005.
Gabbay’s and Mojaddedi’s fine works kick off this year’s Literature & Translation season. Thanks to expert juries associated with our various partners, our awards feature some of the most significant international writing becoming available in English. If you look forward to learning about and perhaps reading these books—as I do—please consider making a donation in support of our translation awards now!
