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.
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