The Master and Margarita (1 of 5) & A History of Iran in 12 Classics

Siyâvash, Szerb and Schiller

Henry Eliot

May 01, 2026

∙ Paid

Dear classics reader,

In this week’s solid-gold cigarette case you will find:

A literary history of Iran in twelve classics;
Birthday wishes to Antal Szerb;
A preview of coming attractions and other notices;

And for paid subscribers:

The week’s new classics – including an anthology of cults;
And our first discussion of The Master and Margarita – with notes on ponds, proofs, Pilate and pastiche.

This newsletter may be too long for your email inbox. If so, please click ‘View entire message’ at the bottom – or visit Substack.

A History of Iran in 12 Classics

As Iran continues to dominate the news headlines, I thought I’d share a selection of classics from and about Iran.

You’ll notice that there are a couple of recurring names in this list of English translations: the poet Dick Davis, whom the Times Literary Supplement described as ‘our finest translator of Persian poetry’, and the academic Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran (see below).

Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings by Abolqasem Ferdowsi (10th century)

Among the greatest works of world literature, this prodigious narrative, composed by the poet Ferdowsi in the late tenth century, tells the story of pre-Islamic Iran, beginning in the mythic time of creation and continuing forward to the Arab invasion in the seventh century. Davis’s elegant combination of prose and verse allows the poetry of the Shahnameh to sing its own tales directly, interspersed sparingly with clearly-marked explanations to ease along modern readers.

[UK / US] Penguin Classics | 1,040 pages | translated by Dick Davis | foreword by Azar Nafisi

The Ruba’iyat of Omar Khayyam (11th century)

Revered in eleventh-century Persia as an astronomer, mathematician and philosopher, Omar Khayyam is now known first and foremost for his Ruba’iyat. The short epigrammatic stanza form allowed poets of his day to express personal feelings, beliefs and doubts with wit and clarity, and Khayyam became one of its most accomplished masters with his touching meditations on the transience of human life and of the natural world. One of the supreme achievements of medieval literature, the reckless romanticism and the pragmatic fatalism in the face of death means these verses continue to hold the imagination of modern readers.

[UK / US] Penguin Classics | 128 pages | translated by Peter Avery & John Heath-Stubbs

The Conference of the Birds by Farid Attar (1177)

Composed in the twelfth century in north-eastern Iran, Attar’s great mystical poem is among the most significant of all works of Persian literature. A marvellous, allegorical rendering of the Islamic doctrine of Sufism - an esoteric system concerned with the search for truth through God - it describes the consequences of the conference of the birds of the world when they meet to begin the search for their ideal king, the Simorgh bird. On hearing that to find him they must undertake an arduous journey, the birds soon express their reservations to their leader, the hoopoe. With eloquence and insight, however, the hoopoe calms their fears, using a series of riddling parables to provide guidance in the search for spiritual truth.

[UK / US] Penguin Classics | 304 pages | translated by Afkham Darbandi & Dick Davis

The Masnavi by Rumi (13th century)

Rumi’s Masnavi is widely recognized as the greatest Sufi poem ever written, and has been called ‘the Koran in Persian’. The thirteenth-century Muslim mystic Rumi composed his work for the benefit of his disciples in the Sufi order named after him, better known as the whirling dervishes. In order to convey his message of divine love and unity he threaded together entertaining stories and penetrating homilies. Drawing from folk tales as well as sacred history, Rumi’s poem is often funny as well as spiritually profound.

Faces of Love: Hafez and the Poets of Shiraz (14th century)

Together, Hafez, a giant of world literature; Jahan Malek Khatun, an eloquent princess; and Obayd-e Zakani, a dissolute satirist, represent one of the most remarkable literary flowerings of any era. All three lived in the famed city of Shiraz, a provincial capital of south-central Iran, and all three drew support from arts-loving rulers during a time better known for its violence than its creative brilliance. Here Dick Davis presents a diverse selection of some of the best poems by these world-renowned authors and shows us the spiritual and secular aspects of love, in varieties embracing every aspect of the human heart.

[UK / US] Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition | 285 pages | translated by Dick Davis

Blind Owl by Sadeq Hedayat (1936)

Blind Owl, Hedayat’s masterpiece, tells the story of a young pen-case painter and his heartbreak. Isolated and alone, he mourns the loss of a mysterious love while descending into recollections and dreams frosted over by opium and alcohol, and imbued with the images he paints: an old man, a cypress tree, a beautiful woman, a waterlily. In stark, lyrical terms, the puzzle of the pen-case painter’s grief is slowly unveiled. As inscrutable as it is universal, Blind Owl is the seminal work of Persian modernism, and one of the great novels of the twentieth century.

[UK / US] Penguin Classics | 128 pages | translated by Sassan Tabatabai

Savushan by Simin Dāneshvar (1969)

This novel chronicles the life of a Persian family during the World War II Allied occupation of Iran. It is set in Shiraz, a town which evokes images of Persepolis and pre-islamic monuments, the great Persian poets, the shrines, sufis and nomadic tribes all within a historical web of the interests, privilege and influence of foreign powers, corruption, incompetence and arrogance of persons in authority. The story is seen through the eyes of Zari, a young wife and mother, who copes with her idealistic husband while struggling with her desire for traditional family life and her need for an individual identity.

[UK / US] Mage Publishers | 322 pages | translated by M. R. Ghanoonparvar | introduced by Brian Spooner

My Uncle Napoleon by Iraj Pezeshkzad (1973)

‘God forbid, I've fallen in love with Layli!’ So begins the farce of our narrator’s life, one spent in a large extended Iranian family lorded over by the blustering, paranoid patriarch, Dear Uncle Napoleon. When Uncle Napoleon’s least favourite nephew falls for his daughter, Layli, family fortunes are reversed, feuds fired up and resolved, and assignations attempted and thwarted.

[UK / US] The Modern Library | 528 pages | translated by Dick Davis | introduced by Azar Nafisi

Shah of Shahs by Ryszard Kapuściński (1982)

Shah of Shahs depicts the final years of the Shah in Iran, and is a compelling meditation on the nature of revolution and the devastating results of fear. Here, Kapuściński describes the tyrannical monarch, who, despite his cruel oppression of the Iranian people, sees himself as the father of a nation, who can turn a backward country into a great power – a vain hope that proves a complete failure. Yet even as Iran becomes a ‘behemoth of riches’ and as the Shah lives like a European billionaire, its people live in a climate of fear, terrorized by the secret police. Told with intense power and feeling, Kapuściński portrays the inevitable build-up to revolution – a cataclysmic upheaval that delivered Iran into the rule of the Ayatollah Khomeini.

Women Without Men by Shahrnush Parsipur (1989)

Women Without Men traces the interwoven destinies of five women – including a wealthy middle-aged housewife, a sex worker and a schoolteacher – as they arrive by different paths to live together in an abundant garden on the outskirts of Tehran. Drawing on elements of Islamic mysticism and recent Iranian history, this unforgettable novel depicts women escaping the narrow confines of family and society, and imagines their future living in a world without men.

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (2000-2003)

Marjane Satrapi lived through the Iranian Revolution as a little girl. This is her classic memoir-in-comic-strips, the story of a child entangled in the history and politics of her country. It paints an unforgettable portrait of growing up in revolutionary and war-torn Iran, in a family that was both outrageous and ordinary, beset by tragedy and yet buffered by love. Funny, wise, ultimately heartbreaking and told with unforgettable pictures.

[UK] Vintage Classics | 352 pages | translated by Anjali Singh
[US] Pantheon | 352 pages | translated by Anjali Singh

Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi (2003)

Every Thursday morning in a living room in Iran, over tea and pastries, eight women meet in secret to discuss forbidden works of Western literature. As they lose themselves in the worlds of Lolita, The Great Gatsby and Pride and Prejudice, gradually they come to share their own stories, dreams and hopes with each other, and, for a few hours, taste freedom. Azar Nafisi’s bestselling memoir is a moving, passionate testament to the transformative power of books, the magic of words and the search for beauty in life’s darkest moments.

[UK] Penguin Modern Classics | 368 pages
[US] Random House | 384 pages

The book descriptions above are taken from the publishers’ online blurbs.

Happy Birthday Antal Szerb

In other news, Antal Szerb was born – in Budapest – on this day in 1901, 125 years ago.

Though of Jewish descent, Szerb was baptised at an early age and remained a lifelong Catholic. He rapidly established himself as a formidable scholar, through studies of Ibsen and Blake and histories of English, Hungarian and world literature. He was a prolific essayist and reviewer, ranging across all the major European languages. He was known for his literary criticism as well as his novels, the best known of which is Journey by Moonlight. Debarred by successive Jewish laws from working in a university, he was subjected to increasing persecution, and finally murdered in a forced labour camp in 1945.

Journey by Moonlight by Antal Szerb (1937)

Mihály and Erzsi are on honeymoon in Italy. Mihály has recently joined the respectable family firm in Budapest, but as his gaze passes over the mysterious back-alleys of Venice, memories of his bohemian past reawaken his old desire to wander. When bride and groom become separated at a provincial train station, Mihály embarks on a chaotic and bizarre journey that leads him finally to Rome, where he must reckon with both his past and his future. In this intoxicating and satirical masterpiece, Szerb takes us deep into the conflicting desires of marriage and shows how adulthood can reverberate endlessly with the ache of youth.

[UK / US] Pushkin Press Classics | 304 pages | translated by Len Rix

Coming Attractions and Other Notices

Future monthly read-alongs

For a sneak preview of our upcoming monthly read-alongs, take a peak here.

Dream Story – in-person book club

Two weeks ago we finished discussing Dream Story.

If you would like to continue the conversation in person, please book a ticket for our Dream Story discussion at the Hatchards Classics Book Club next Thursday 7th May.

Book a ticket

We meet at Hatchards bookshop (187 Piccadilly, London) on the first Thursday of every month at 6.30pm – tickets cost £5 with a free Hatchards Reward Card and include a glass (or two) of wine. These book club events are not live-streamed, but I post a report of our discussion afterwards here on Substack.

My Bookshelf

It was a pleasure to be interviewed by Mathew Lyons recently for his excellent Writer’s Bookshelf series on The Broken Compass.

Read the interview here.for my views on Enid Blyton, Laurence Sterne and Herman Melville – and why I prefer reading fiction to non-fiction.

Annual book subscription

And if you’re enjoying our read-alongs, why not treat yourself to the Hatchards Classic Book Club annual book subscription?

You (or a friend) can receive all the books we read each month here on Read the Classics, beautifully gift-wrapped and delivered to your door, anywhere in the world, as well as a year’s complimentary subscription to Read the Classics, so you can choose to read along with us, if you wish.

To find out more, follow this link or email Hatchards directly: subscriptions@hatchards.co.uk

What’s new this week?

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