Attar (also known as Shaikh Farid-Ud-Din, and Attar of Nishapur,) was born in 1145 in Nišapur, a city in the northeast region of Iran. Reliable information on Attar’s life is scarce, but what we do know for certain is that he was a pharmacist, a dispenser of remedies and interpreter of illnesses.
Indeed, the name “Attar” means herbalist and perfume maker. Although information about his life and death is opaque and has been mythologized over the intervening centuries, at some point Attar traveled widely and met with several Sufi Masters.
Legend has it that Rumi met Attar when he was child. Rumi who later became a beloved poet, repeatedly acknowledged Attar as his master, and the influence of Attar’s wisdom and style of writing is evident in his work.
Attar lived for over seventy years and died a violent death in the massacre inflicted by the Mongols in 1221.
Sholeh Wolpé is an Iranian-American poet, writer, and librettist whose body of work spans seven collections of poetry, several plays, five books of translations and three anthologies, as well as texts and librettos for the choir and opera.
Her acclaimed translations include, The Invisible Sun (Harper Collins, 2025) and The Conference of the Birds (W.W. Norton, 2017), both by the 12th century Iranian Sufi mystic poet Attar, as well as Sin-Selected Poems of Forugh Farrokhzad by the 20th century Iranian rebel poet. Her award-winning translations have established her as a celebrated re-creator of Persian poetry into English.
Wolpé’s recent poetry collection include Abacus of Loss- A Memoir in Verse (University of Arkansas Press, 2022) and its bilingual Spanish edition, Ábaco de la Pérdida (Visor Libros, España, 2025.) Her latest work of prose, “Eye For An Eye”, appears in Iran +100: Stories from a Century After the Coup (Comma Press, UK, 2025.)
Recipient of the Opera America Discovery Award, the PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant, Midwest Book Award, and the Lois Roth Translation Prize, Wolpé has lived in Iran, Trinidad, and United Kingdom, and currently divides her time between California and Barcelona. She is the Writer-In-Residence at the University of California, Irvine.