Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
We Computers: A Ghazal Novel

We Computers: A Ghazal Novel

Ismailov, Hamid
Fairweather-Vega, Shelley

Paperback

Series: Margellos World Republic of Letters

General FictionLiterary Fiction

Publisher Price: $20.00

ISBN10: 030027274X
ISBN13: 9780300272741
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: Aug 19 2025
Pages: 296
Weight: 0.65
Height: 0.70 Width: 5.11 Depth: 7.68
Language: English

A multilayered exploration of poetry, authorship, and digital intelligence by a writer of immense poetic power (The Guardian)

Finalist, 2025 National Book Award, Translated Literature - A World Literature Today Notable Translation of 2025

Many paths cross in Ismailov's beautiful new work--poetry, history and the infinite imagination. Every path winding into another. Every path worth taking.--Patti Smith

In the late 1980s, French poet and psychologist Jon-Perse finds himself in possession of one of the most promising inventions of the century: a computer. Enchanted by snippets of Persian poetry he learns from his Uzbek translation partner, Abdulhamid Ismail, Jon-Perse builds a computer program capable of both analyzing and generating literature. But beyond the text on his screen there are entire worlds--of history, philosophy, and maybe even of love--in the stories and people he and AI conjure.

Hamid Ismailov brings together his work as a poet, translator, and student of literature of both East and West to craft a postmodern ode to poetry across centuries and continents. Crossing the poètes maudits with beloved Sufi classics, blending absurdist dreams with the life of the famed Persian poet Hafez, moving from careful mathematical calculations to lyrical narratives, Ismailov invents an ingenious transnational poetics of love and longing for the digital age. Situated at the crossroads of a multilingual world and mediated by the unreliable sensibilities of digital intelligence, this book is a dazzling celebration of how poetry resonates across time and space.

Also from

Ismailov, Hamid

View All

Also in

Literary Fiction

View All