Heer Waris Shah: Translated by M.Munawar Butt Paperback – September 7, 2013

Heer is an epic poem, long known and loved by people living in Punjab, a region now divided between India and Pakistan, but virtually unknown in the West.Thanks to the translation of Dr. Butt it can now be appreciated in all its beauty and inspirational force by all English speaking people. It constitutes a welcome addition to the literature on romantic love, fitting squarely in the same league of evergreens, like Romeo and Juliet. It testifies cogently to the unity of the human race and the universality and everlasting nature of the human heart and its stirrings, its heights and its debasements alike.The poem tells a love story in which the sublime heights of love and beauty are epically pitted against the dark forces of hatred, pettiness and jealousy. Just like in Romeo and Juliet, love and life succumb in the end, in a drama that is heart rending, but unavoidable, since the highest and most sublime love always take the lover into the reaches of death. Love knows no limits, no other value is above it, not even one’s own life. In another example of extreme love, the cross of Christ, self-immolation is made for the sake of love of others. Both witness to the vicinity of love with death, with the power of archetypal, epical imageries.The association with epics is indeed justified in the case of Heer by its style, betraying its genesis as an oral poem. The story , kept alive with a constant infusion of new characters and changing scenarios, betrays the hand of consummate story tellers, used to keep the attention of a live audience. Not unlike the Homeric poems, Heer circulated in oral form for a long time, before being set into writing.The characters are indeed epic heroes that remain etched in the mind of the reader, both inspiring and challenging, with their example of sublime love, and the purity of their quest for each other’s embrace.However, this embrace is not a merely “romantic” one. It is the metaphor for a quest for transcendence and total surrender of the self, or in other words, of man’s quest for God. It therefore recalls to mind, in addition to Romeo and Juliet, that other love poem long interpreted in the Christian tradition as a metaphor of man’s mystical union with God: the Song of Songs of the bible. In Heer, the geographic-cultural setting indeed suggests a happy union and mutual interbreeding of the two great religious traditions of the region: the Muslim and the Hindu. The stress on mysticism and quest for transcendence typical of the latter fits squarely here with a Sufi (re)interpretation. The notes provided by the translator provide an invaluable help to the reader in navigating his way through the metaphors used in the text, as well as in understanding specific details that would be lost to a westerner.In conclusion, one should be thankful to the translator for allowing access to this text, a hidden gem now unveiled and shining, for all to admire its poetic beauty and be inspired by its eternal truth.

As a westerner, it breaks my heart that I cannot hear or read this work in its original form. The translator has revealed the beautiful layers of meaning in this work. I was able see how the words refer to both physical and metaphysical experience of diving deep into the search for and revelation of the meaning of existence. This translator understands the paradoxes that reveal truth, and makes them accessible to the reader. I am thankful for this window into one of the great epics in the history of humanity.

Great works of art but the translation could use improvement.