Essays on Gurani Literature

This volume offers a new perspective on the Zagros region literary tradition. Gurani literature boasts a collection of the region’s oldest oral and written literary traditions. Despite its significance, the repertoire and its essential function in the preservation and transmission of historical, cultural, and literal data of the Guran region’s population has mostly remained unexplored. This volume represents various Guran regions on the southeastern and southern fringes of Kurdish territory and touches upon broad themes of oral and written texts, including epics, folktales, religious texts, poetry, and romances. These detailed and ground-breaking contributions will be an invaluable source for facilitating further research on the Gurani literary tradition; as well as being a significant guide to studying its impact on Persian and Zagros region literary history. Furthermore, this work will provide the reader with a new perspective and insight into the complexity and variety of literature in the Persianate world, moving toward a more inclusive view of literature.

Alireza Korangy received his PhD from the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University. His field of research is classical Persian and Arabic philology with a special emphasis on poetics, rhetoric, folklore and linguistics.

Azadeh Vatanpour (Ph.D.) is the Director of Iranian Studies at the University of Austin. Her research focuses on ethno-religious minority groups in the Middle East, particularly among Iranian minority religions and their socio-political relationship with Islamic tradition. She examines the intersection of devotional musical practices, Literature, politics of translation, and performativity. Her current interdisciplinary research project explores the identity formation of the Yarsan through sacred music, religious text, divinity, and performance from the nineteenth century to the present.