Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings

Composed more than a thousand years ago, this national epic of Persia tells the story of Iran from the first ""lord of the world,"" Kayumars, through the seventh-century Arab/Islamic conquest of the Sassanid dynasty. With a foreword by Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran, and illustrated with Persian lithographs, Davis's translation of this epic poem is an accessible combination of poetry and prose.