The Story of Joseph ─ Kyssa'i Yusuf

For Generations learned by heart and copied by hand in the Volga region, Kyssa'i Yusuf (The Story of Joseph) is today the only surviving work by Kol Gali (1183-1236), widely considered the founder of Bulgar-Tatar literature, here rendered in its entirety into English for the first time by Fred Beake and Ravil Bukharaev.

Supporting the translation are background essays on Volga-Bulgaria and the Kazan Tatars, Kol Gali and his Poem, Religion in the Joseph story and the significance of Kyssa'i Yusuf for the Islamic world, as well as the approach taken in creating the English translation. In addition. Azat Minnekaev, one of Russia's leading contemporary artists, has produced over forty specially commissioned illustrations to help bring the Joseph story to life.

The volume also contains a complete set of faesimiles of the early nineteenth-century manuscript of Kyssa'i Yusuf, which has been used for this translation, now in the safekeeping of Tatarstan's National Library in Kazan.

Ravil Bukharaev is a well-known writer, poet and scholar of religious, cultural and political history of his native Tatarstan. He was born in Kazan in 1951 and is the author of more than thirty books, among which are Islam in Russia: The Four Seasons (Curzon Press, London, St. Martin's Press, New York, 2000) and Tatarstan: A Can-do Culture (Global Oriental, Folkestone, 2007).

In 2006, he was awarded the State Prize of Tatarstan for his latest books of poetry. He has lived in London since 1992.
Fred Beake has been active as a poet, editor (The Poet's Voice and Mammon press), critic and translator for forty years. He holds a Classics degree from Bristol University and also studied Afro-Asian Studies at Sussex University. His published translations range from Robert Desnos' long surrealist poem The Night of Loveless Nights to Aristophanes' Peace. His New and Selected Poems was published by Shearsman in 2005.