Acknowledgments

Although I am still relatively young, more than half of my adult life has been occupied by the preparation of this book, and I am aware that I will likely need one or two more decades to perfect my limited understanding of Saʿdi’s poetry. Time is ruthless, they say, but it is also an enchanting flow of words and images that urge us to be pronounced and visualized. Poets like Saʿdi and his predecessors knew that only words can save us from the spiraling destiny of death and oblivion that constitutes the human condition.

With this brief note, in the middle of a pandemic that has disrupted the lives of so many of us, I wish to immortalize the names of all the people—friends, relatives, students, colleagues—who have gifted me with the grace of their presence and affection during the years leading to the publication of this book. These pages would not exist without the existence of these beloved ones, so dear to me, and I would not even recognize myself if it were not for the way their lives offered light and breath to my own life.

Reader from our time or any future time, listen: in one way or another (and some of them in multiple ways), these people have contributed to the birth of this book. All merit is theirs, and any inconsistencies or mistakes are exclusively mine.

Please, thank them on my behalf while reading their names with me:

Azi Ahmadi, Amr Taher Ahmed, Sari Almenar Baixauli, Maite Alvarez, Luke Arterburn, Blake Atwood, Marian Austin, Carol Bakhos, Lamia Balafrej, Francesca Bayre, Ali Behdad, Uta Bekaia, Anne Blackstock- Bernstein, Alessandra Bonazzi, Catherine Bonesho, Edward J. Borey, Behzad Borhan, Shane Boris, Catherine Brookman, Dominic Brookshaw, Lia Brozgal, Aaron Burke, Fausto Andre Cardoso, Vittorio Celotto, Antonio del Castello, Christine Chism, Gregory Cohen, Kara Cooney, Michael Cooperson, Camille Cotteverte, Peter Cowe, Rashid Crisostomo, Ahmed al-Dailami, Yorgos Dedes, the Derviso family, Iskandar Ding, Tommaso di Dio, Dinah Diwan, Julie Ershadi, Aria Fani, Shahla Farghadani, Joshua L. Freeman, Carmen Gallo, Isaac Gimenez, Ben Gottlieb, Philip Grant, Megan Rose Greene, Nile Green, Davide Grossi, Latifeh Hagigi, Kamron Jabbari, Sean Hazen, Kaveh Hemmat, Edmund Herzig, David Hirsch, Joana Hurtado i Mateu, Ali Igmen, Nanda Imbimbo, Marcello Ingenito, Fabrizio Ingenito, Gianluca Ingenito, Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak, Ali Karjoo-Ravari, Naz Keynezhad, Hani Khafipour, Mina Khalil, Nina Khoshnudi, Selim Kuru, Justine Landau, Rémi Lécuyer, Frank Lewis, Paul Losensky, Anahita and Jim Lovelace, Azeem Malik, Amir Mansoori, Louise Marlow, Giovanni Maria Martini, the Mazzone family, Evan Metzger, Jane Mikkelson, Levan Mindiashvili, Shaya Mohajer, Victor Montecinos, Arham Moradi, Abolfazl Moshiri, Maryam Niazadeh, Teresa Orlandini, Michael O’Sullivan, Sarah Parvini, Doug Peck, Cesar Perez, Michele Petrone, Judith Pfeiffer, Shaahin Pishbin, Anne Roberts, Paul Ruseler, Catello Russo, Christine van Ruymbeke, Fatima Sai, Aria Safar, David Schaberg, Bill Schniedewind, Asghar Seyed-Ghorab, Sunil Sharma, Ghazal Sheei, Matt Sobel, Gemma Sonego, Marc Sounigo, Iraj Shahbazi, Jahan Sharif, Sahba Shayani, Rahim Shayegan, Zrinka Stahuljak, Marija Stojanovic, Sandi Tan, Francesco Maria Tipaldi, Kevin Tombarello, Marc Underhill, Sasha Wachtel, Kyle Warren, Willeke Wendrich, Jonathan Winnerman, Mohammad Jafar Yahaghi, Luke Yarbrough, Murat C. Yildiz.

This book is dedicated to my family: Ciro, Dorita, Maria Rosaria, Rita, and Victor, my deldār, who has patiently read every single page of this monograph. As an academic accomplishment, I dedicate this monograph to the two scholars who shaped my passion for learning, teaching, and thinking: Alessandra Bonazzi and Camilla Miglio: two women who, along with my grandmother, Giuseppina, taught me how to see through the nature of things and contemplate their beauty.