Daniel Ladinsky's 1999 'rendering' of poems attributed to Hafiz — the 14th-century Persian Sufi master from Shiraz. The book has been Hafiz's most-read English presentation for two decades, in the same publishing position that Coleman Barks holds for Rumi.
Persian scholars including Christopher Shackle, Murat Nemet-Nejat and Omid Safi have argued that Ladinsky's poems are not translations at all — they have no consistent textual basis in Hafiz's Divan, Ladinsky himself does not read Persian, and several poems appear to be Ladinsky's own compositions presented as Hafiz's. The collection is organised into twenty-five numbered sections, each named after one of its poems; the range of tone runs from playful tavern imagery to declarations of divine love characteristic of the ghazal tradition. Hafiz (c. 1315–1390) was a Sufi poet of the Mevlevi-adjacent Shadhili tradition in Shiraz who memorised the Quran as a youth — his pen name means 'one who has memorised the Quran'.
Even after all this time the sun never says to the earth, 'You owe me.' Look what happens with a love like that — it lights the whole sky.
Daniel Ladinsky, after Hafiz
Contents
One: Startled by God
Two: I Have Learned So Much
Three: Removing the Shoe from the Temple
Four: I Hold the Lion's Paw
Five: Don't Die Again
Six: The Gift
Seven: I Am Really Just a Tambourine
Eight: Get the Blame Straight
Nine: The Prettiest Mule
Ten: Tiny Gods
Eleven: Elephant Wondering
Twelve: Counting Moles
Thirteen: Reverence
Fourteen: A Cushion for Your Head
Fifteen: Two Giant Fat People
Sixteen: Spiced Manna
Seventeen: Where Is the Door to the Tavern?
Eighteen: When the Sun Conceived a Man
Nineteen: Lousy at Math
Twenty: Cupping My Hands Like a Mountain Valley
Twenty-one: The God Who Only Knows Four Words
Twenty-two: Stay with Us
Twenty-three: A Clever Piece of Mutton
Twenty-four: The Silk Mandala
Twenty-five: I Know I Was the Water
Reception
Beloved by readers, contested by scholars to a degree that has no real parallel in modern translation history. Persian scholars including Christopher Shackle, Murat Nemet-Nejat and (most pointedly) Omid Safi have argued that Ladinsky's poems are not translations at all — they have no consistent textual basis in Hafiz's Divan, Ladinsky himself does not read Persian, and several poems appear to be Ladinsky's own compositions presented as Hafiz's. Penguin's marketing description as 'translations' is what most rankles. Inside the popular spiritual-poetry market the controversy has had limited impact; inside academic Iranian studies it is treated as a case of how thoroughly an Anglophone audience can be misled by a confident publisher and a charismatic translator.
Frequently asked
What is The Gift by Hafiz?
It is Daniel Ladinsky's 1999 collection of 250 poems attributed to Hafiz, the 14th-century Persian Sufi master of Shiraz. Organised into twenty-five named sections, the book has been the most-read English presentation of Hafiz for more than two decades. Ladinsky does not read Persian; his poems are renderings inspired by Hafiz rather than translations from the Divan.
Are the poems in The Gift actual translations of Hafiz?
No, by the scholarly consensus. Persian scholars including Omid Safi and Christopher Shackle have argued that Ladinsky's poems have no consistent textual basis in Hafiz's Divan and that several appear to be Ladinsky's own compositions. Ladinsky himself describes his work as 'renderings' or 'interpretations' rather than translations. Penguin's marketing of the book as translations has been the central point of academic criticism.
Who was Hafiz?
Hafiz (c. 1315–1390), born Shams-ud-din Muhammad in Shiraz, Persia (present-day Iran), is the most beloved poet in the Persian literary tradition. His pen name means 'one who has memorised the Quran'. He worked within the ghazal form — short lyric poems structured around a repeated rhyme and refrain — to express the Sufi themes of divine love, the intoxication of God's presence, and the dissolution of the self.