The ceremony took place at the ECO Cultural Institute (ECI) where Culture Minister of Tajikistan Mirzoshohrukh Asrorov, Iranian Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Mohammad Hosseini, ECI director Hojjatollah Ayyubi, and several other cultural officials took part.
Entitled “Breeze of Bokhara”, the book is published by the ECO Cultural Institute. Nastaran Nosratzadegan has translated the poems into English. The Russian version was made available by Irana Zamani and Shah Mansur Shah-Mirza has translated the poems into Tajik.
Born in the village of Rudak (Panjrud) in Khorasan, now located in Tajikistan, Rudaki was the first great literary genius of the modern Persian language who composed poetry in “New Persian,” which is written in the Perso-Arabic alphabet script.
Tajiki Minister Asrorov pointed to the fact that Rudaki is widely known as the father of Persian poets and said that the Rudaki book is the best gift one can give as a New Year’s gift to others.
We are happy that the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) has begun its publishing career with the selection of Rudaki’s poetry and we are certain this will remain an everlasting volume in history like Rudaki himself, the minister added.
Hosseini also referred to the cultural commonalities between the ECO member states and said, “The Persian-speaking countries of Iran, Tajikistan, Pakistan and Afghanistan possess great numbers of luminaries respected by the regional people.
“It is a great honor to have a poet of over one thousand years but whose poetry is still easy to understand at this time. This emphasizes the precious nature of the Persian language,” Iranian Academy of Persian Language and Literature director Qolam-Ali Haddad-Adel said.
Hojjatollah Ayyubi also said that the institute would soon be releasing the book “Noruz Rituals”.
RM/YAW
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MNA