enotalone Home  |  Forum  |  Search    
Shahnameh
The Persian Book of Kings
by Abolqasem Ferdowsi
List Price: 45.00
Price: 29.70

Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours

Hardcover: 928 pages
Publisher: Viking Adult (March 02 2006)
Costumer Rating: Costumer rating

Read an Excerpt

The First Kings
What does the Persian poet say about the first man to seek the crown of world sovereignty? No one has any knowledge of those first days, unless he has heard tales passed down from father to son.

The First Kings, Part 2
Tahmures had a noble vizier named Shahrasb, a man whose thoughts avoided all evil and who was universally praised. Fasting by day and praying by night, he was the king's star of good fortune, and the souls of the malevolent were under his control.



Book Description

Among the great works of world literature, perhaps one of the least familiar to English readers is the Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings, the national epic of Persia. This prodigious narrative, composed by the poet Ferdowsi between the years 980 and 1010, tells the story of pre-Islamic Iran, beginning in the mythic time of Creation and continuing forward to the Arab invasion in the seventh century.

As a window on the world, Shahnameh belongs in the company of such literary masterpieces as Dante's Divine Comedy, the plays of Shakespeare, the epics of Homer - classics whose reach and range bring whole cultures into view. In its pages are unforgettable moments of national triumph and failure, human courage and cruelty, blissful love and bitter grief.

In tracing the roots of Iran, Shahnameh initially draws on the depths of legend and then carries its story into historical times, when ancient Persia was swept into an expanding Islamic empire. Now Dick Davis, the greatest modern translator of Persian poetry, has revisited that poem, turning the finest stories of Ferdowsi's original into an elegant combination of prose and verse. For the first time in English, in the most complete form possible, readers can experience Shahnameh in the same way that Iranian storytellers have lovingly conveyed it in Persian for the past thousand years.

About the Author

Abolqasem FerdowsiAbolqasem Ferdowsi

Abolqasem Ferdowsi was born in Khorasan in a village near Tus in 940. Ferdowsi is considered to be one of the greatest Persian poets to have ever lived. Among the national heroes and literary greats of all time, Ferdowsi has a very special place. His life-long endeavour, dedication and personal sacrifices to preserve the national identity, language and heritage of his homeland put him in great hardship during his lifetime, but won him fame and honour for one of the greatest poetic masterpieces of all time.

  » More by Abolqasem Ferdowsi


Dick Davis

Dick Davis is currently professor of Persian at Ohio State University and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His translations from Persian include The Lion and the Throne, Fathers and Sons, Sunset of Empire: Stories from the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi, Vols. I, II, III..

  » More by Dick Davis