Shahnameh of Ferdowsi: Volume 2 of 12 — Persian with English translation (EPUB + PDF) Price: 5.00 USD

The second of twelve volumes presenting the complete Shahnameh of Ferdowsi, the Book of Kings, in a bilingual, line-by-line edition. This volume holds stories 10 to 16 (The Reign of Zohakmasp to The Story of Siavash): 68 sections in 4,028 couplets.

Each Persian couplet appears in the original, followed immediately by its English translation, so a reader of either language can follow the verse in the other. The Persian is set in a clear modern typeface and reads right to left as it should; the English is plain and faithful rather than ornamental, keeping Ferdowsi's images and turns of thought in his own order.

Written around the year 1010 in a deliberately pure Persian, the Shahnameh tells the myths and history of Iran from the creation of the world to the Arab conquest, and has shaped the language and identity of Iranians for a thousand years. The volume opens with a short preface on the poem and on this bilingual method, and a contents list of every story and section.

Translated by Yahya Nazer, whose bilingual editions of Rumi, Saadi, Hafez, Attar, Khayyam and Ferdowsi number more than sixty volumes.

You receive the book in two formats: EPUB (Apple Books, Thorium, any e-reader app) and PDF (opens anywhere).