Many Iranian and foreign literary scholars attended the commemoration ceremonies held in Tehran and the poet’s hometown Shiraz.
The Center for the Study of Sa’adi in Shiraz hosted a program titled Sa’adi in Our Times that focused on the poet’s influence on our modern literature, culture and ethics.
Turkish scholars including Hicabi Kirlangic of Ankara University and Mustafa Cicekler of Istanbul University were among the foreign guests attended the event.
In Tehran, National Sa’adi Day was also celebrated during a concert held by the National Orchestra in Vahdat Hall on April 20, 2013.
The National Sa’adi Day is annually celebrated on April 21 in different Iranian cities as well as several countries.
Born in Shiraz in 1194 CE, Sa'adi is best-known for his books Boustan and Golestan which present a peculiar blend of human kindness and cynicism, humor, and resignation in the form of stories and personal anecdotes.
His proficiency in Persian literature confers on him the title ‘Master of Prose and Poetry’.
He is also remembered as a great panegyrist and lyricist, the author of a number of masterly odes portraying human experience, and particular odes collected in Ghazaliyat (Sonnets) and Qasa'id (Odes).
Sa'adi is known world-wide for one of his aphorisms, which adorns the entrance to the Hall of Nations of the United Nations building in New York.
Andre du Ryer was the first European who presented Sa’adi to the West by means of a partial French translation of the Golestan in 1634.
