Loiq Sher-Ali (1941-2000) was born in a small village called Mazar-e Sharif (it shouldn't be confused with the city of Mazar-e Sharif which is one of the four largest city in Afghanistan) of the Panjakent district in the Sughd Region of Tajikistan. Shir-Ali was a notable figure in the Persian literary milieu of the twentieth century. He was strongly influenced by his countryman Abdollah Jafar ibn Mohammad Rudaki. Stylistically he was under the influence of Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh (Book of Kings) and Omar Khayyam’s poetry. Themes in his poetry are diverse. Commonly he is believed to be a cheerful poet , one can scarcely finds sadness and sorrow in his poetry. His complete works have been fully published in 2001 in both cyrillic and Farsi script. Here is a sample of his poetry that I translated from Tajiki into English: If you can’t make me laugh, don’t make me cry If you can’t help me, don’t hurt me If you can’t make me happy, don’t remind me of joy If you can’t make me joyfu...
sporadic thoughts and reflections of an anthropology phd student