Shahnameh
The Epic of the Persian Kings [Illustrated Slipcase Edition]
Author: Ferdowsi, Ahmad Sadri, Sheila Canby and Hamid Rahmanian
This new edition of the thousand-year-old classic work by Ferdowsi, one of Persia's greatest poets, is a prose translation of the national epic. It is fully illuminated with over 500 pages of lavish illustrations.
Hardcover
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Summary
This new edition of the thousand-year-old classic work by Ferdowsi, one of Persia's greatest poets, is a prose translation of the national epic. It is fully illuminated with over 500 pages of lavish illustrations.
Description
Vividly translated and lushly illustrated, this edition of the Persian epic Shahnameh is fully illuminated for new audiences.
Ferdowsi's classic poem Shahnameh is part myth, part history—beginning with the legend of the birth of the Persian nation and its tumultuous history, it contains magical birds and superhuman heroes and centuries-long battles. Written over 1,000 years ago, it was meant to protect Persian collective memory amidst a turbulent sea of cultural storms. Originally written in couplets, the translation and adaptation by Ahmad Sadri retells the mythological tales in prose format. The spectacular illustrations in this edition were created from elements culled from thousands of manuscripts, lithographs, and miniatures dating from the thirteenth through the nineteenth centuries, and each panel becomes a new work of art, an exquisite collage of traditional forms.
500 + full-color illustrations
Critic Reviews
A masterful prose translation of the Shahnameh . . . which remains a pillar of Iranian identity to this day. This new translation will make the tales of the Shahnameh, replete with heroes, kings, and moral injunctions, available to a new generation of readers.--Ali M. Ansari, founding director of the Institute for Iranian Studies at the University of St. Andrews
The definitive English-edition Shahnameh. There cannot be a more lovingly translated, artfully presented version--what a profound gift for lovers of Iran, history, language, poetry, humanity. What a gift for us all.--Kaveh Akbar, author of Martyr!
About the Author
The ancient legends of the Persian Book of Kings (Shahnameh) 1 were versified by Abolqasem Ferdowsi (940-1020 CE), who was born to a family of small landowners near the city of Tus, in northeastern Iran.
An Iranian sociologist and translator, Ahmad Sadri is a professor of Islamic world studies, sociology, and anthropology at Lake Forest College, and lives in Illinois.
Hamid Rahmanian is a John Guggenheim Fellow and multidisciplinary artist based in New York.
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