Peter William Avery OBE (15 May 1923 – 6 October 2008) was an eminent

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

scholar of

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

and a Fellow of

King's College, Cambridge King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, the college lies beside the River Cam and faces out onto King's Parade in the centre of the city ...

Career

Avery contributed to English language work on Persian history and literature, such as ''The Age of Expansion'' and ''Medieval Persia'' and published ''Modern Iran''. One of Avery's best known works is a translation (with poet

John Heath-Stubbs John Francis Alexander Heath-Stubbs (9 July 1918 – 26 December 2006) was an English poet and translator. He is known for verse influenced by classical myths, and for a long Arthurian poem, ''Artorius'' (1972). Biography and works Heath-Stub ...

) of the Persian text of ''

Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam ''Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám'' is the title that Edward FitzGerald gave to his 1859 translation from Persian to English of a selection of quatrains (') attributed to Omar Khayyam (1048–1131), dubbed "the Astronomer-Poet of Persia". Altho ...

'', first published in 1979. Also with John Heath-Stubbs, Avery published "Thirty Poems of Hafiz of Shiraz", reprinted in 2006. His final work, and the culmination of his career, was a translation of the complete lyrics of Hafiz, ''The Collected Lyrics of Hafiz of Shiraz'', published in 2007, hb; pb which was awarded the Farabi prize and is currently the only contemporary complete translation in English. His translations are published with copious notes explaining allusions in the text and filling in what the poets would have expected their readers to know.Obituary: Peter Avery

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...

, (14 Oct 2008), page 29, (not online 19 Oct 08)

Life

Avery was born in

Derby Derby ( ) is a city and unitary authority area in Derbyshire, England. It lies on the banks of the River Derwent in the south of Derbyshire, which is in the East Midlands Region. It was traditionally the county town of Derbyshire. Derby gai ...

and educated at Rock Ferry High School,

Birkenhead Birkenhead (; cy, Penbedw) is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, Merseyside, England; historically, it was part of Cheshire until 1974. The town is on the Wirral Peninsula, along the south bank of the River Mersey, opposite Liver ...

and

Liverpool University , mottoeng = These days of peace foster learning , established = 1881 – University College Liverpool1884 – affiliated to the federal Victoria Universityhttp://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukla/2004/4 University of Manchester Act 200 ...

. War Service in the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

interrupted his studies, which he resumed after the war at the

London School of Oriental and African Studies SOAS University of London (; the School of Oriental and African Studies) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in the Bloomsbury are ...

, graduating in 1949. He learned

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...

and Persian and knowledge of these led to his appointment as chief language training officer with the

Anglo-Iranian Oil Company The Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) was a British company founded in 1909 following the discovery of a large oil field in Masjed Soleiman, Persia (Iran). The British government purchased 51% of the company in 1914, gaining a controlling number ...

Abadan Abadan ( fa, آبادان ''Ābādān'', ) is a city and capital of Abadan County, Khuzestan Province, which is located in the southwest of Iran. It lies on Abadan Island ( long, 3–19 km or 2–12 miles wide). The island is bounded ...

, South-West Iran. In 1951 the government of Iran nationalised the oil industry and Avery moved to

Baghdad Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon ...

, where he taught English. In 1952, he published, with John Heath-Stubbs his first translations of Hafiz. In 1958 he was appointed Lecturer in Persian Language Literature and History at Cambridge University, becoming a Fellow of King's College in 1964. He retired from the Lectureship in 1990, but continued researching and writing as a Fellow of King's, and continued to lead an informal reading group in Persian poetry, despite ill health, until his last months.

Selected works

* ''Modern Iran'', Praeger, 1965. * ''The Cambridge History of Iran'', edited by P. Avery, G. R. G. Hambly and C. Melville, Cambridge University Press (1991) . * Peter Avery, ''The Collected Lyrics of Hafiz of Shiraz'', 603 p. (Archetype, Cambridge, UK, 2007). hb; pb
Note: This translation is based on '' Divān-e Hāfez'', Volume 1, ''The Lyrics (Ghazals)'', edited by

Parviz Natel-Khanlari Parviz Natel Khanlari ( fa, پرویز ناتل خانلری; March 20, 1914 – August 23, 1990) was an Iranian literary scholar, linguist, author, researcher, politician, and professor at Tehran University. Biography Parviz Natel Khanlari g ...

(

Tehran Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

, 1362 AH/1983-4). * Peter Avery, ''The Speech of the Birds, Mantiqu't-Tair, of Faridu'd-Din 'Attar /

Farid ad-Din Attar Abū Ḥamīd bin Abū Bakr Ibrāhīm (c. 1145 – c. 1221; fa, ابو حامد بن ابوبکر ابراهیم), better known by his pen-names Farīd ud-Dīn () and ʿAṭṭār of Nishapur (, Attar means apothecary), was a PersianRitter, H. ...

'', 560 p. (The Islamic Texts Society, Cambridge, UK, 1998). (cloth), 0-946621-70-5 (paper).

Awards

* OBE, received in 2001. *Iran's Farabi Prize, received in 2008.

Notes and references

{{DEFAULTSORT:Avery, Peter 1923 births 2008 deaths English orientalists Fellows of King's College, Cambridge Iranologists Officers of the Order of the British Empire Anglo-Persian Oil Company Translators from Persian English male non-fiction writers English expatriates in Iran 20th-century translators 20th-century English male writers People from Derby Royal Navy personnel of World War II British expatriates in Iran British expatriates in Iraq

Career

Life

Selected works

Awards

See also

Notes and references