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"A tragic epic love story before Romeo and Juliet, by one of the greatest medieval Persian romance poets, in a modern-verse English translation by Dick Davis A Penguin Classic Based on historical characters of the seventh-century Iranian court and written 850 years ago, the narrative poem about Khosrow and Shirin shares a shelf with the most intensely romantic classic stories readers love, from Tristan and Isolde to Layla and Majnun to Romeo and Juliet to Gatsby and Daisy. The love between an Iranian prince (Khosrow) and an Armenian princess (Shirin) is at the center of this tumultuous tale in which the powers of politics and warfare intertwine with no less powerful forces of erotic desire and the quest for personal and spiritual fulfilment. Theirs is a complex love story based on conflicting concepts of love, one regarding the beloved as a prize to be conquered and possessed, the other unrequited and all-consuming, relishing the very notion of the annihilation of the self through love. Davis has captured the energy and poetry of Nezami's original in modern verse. Davis's introduction and textual commentary further strengthens his translation by providing insightful context for the general reader and scholar alike. Khosrow and Shirin will enchant both the classicist and the general reader, to captivate a new audience for Nezami's masterpiece. "Before Romeo and Juliet, there was Khosrow and Shirin. The medieval Persian epic 'Khosrow and Shirin' is a rich and gloriously excessive love story"-Michael Dirda, The Washington Post."
Nezami Ganjavi (Author), Dick Davis, Mozhan Navabi, Peter Ganim (Narrator)
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Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings
"The definitive translation by Dick Davis of the great national epic of Iran—now newly revised and expanded to be the most complete English-language edition Dick Davis—“our pre-eminent translator from the Persian” (The Washington Post)—has revised and expanded his acclaimed translation of Ferdowsi’s masterpiece, adding more than 100 pages of newly translated text. Davis’s elegant combination of prose and verse allows the poetry of the Shahnameh to sing its own tales directly, interspersed sparingly with clearly marked explanations to ease along modern audiences. Originally composed for the Samanid princes of Khorasan in the tenth century, the Shahnameh is among the greatest works of world literature. This prodigious narrative tells the story of pre-Islamic Persia, from the mythical creation of the world and the dawn of Persian civilization through the seventh-century Arab conquest. The stories of the Shahnameh are deeply embedded in Persian culture and beyond, as attested by their appearance in such works as The Kite Runner and the love poems of Rumi and Hafez. This audiobook is expertly read by Dick Davis, Nikki Massoud, and Sean Rohani with audio engineering by Blake Rook. It was produced and published by Echo Point Books & Media, an independent bookseller in Brattleboro, Vermont. Our sincere gratitude to the Parwiz Zafari fund at the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies at Stanford University for their generous support in bringing this audio production to life. You can learn more about their work at iranianstudies.stanford.edu."
Abolqasem Ferdowsi (Author), Dick Davis, Nikki Massoud, Sean Rohani (Narrator)
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Faces of Love: Hafez and the Poets of Shiraz
"Acclaimed translator Dick Davis breathes new life into the timeless works of three masters of 14th-century Persian literature Together, Hafez, a giant of world literature; Jahan Malek Khatun, an eloquent princess; and Obayd-e Zakani, a dissolute satirist, represent one of the most remarkable literary flowerings of any era. All three lived in the famed city of Shiraz, a provincial capital of south-central Iran, and all three drew support from arts-loving rulers during a time better known for its violence than its creative brilliance. Here Dick Davis, an award-winning poet widely considered "our finest translator of Persian poetry" (The Times Literary Supplement), presents a diverse selection of some of the best poems by these world-renowned authors and shows us the spiritual and secular aspects of love, in varieties embracing every aspect of the human heart. "Davis [is] widely acknowledged as the leading translator of Persian literature in our time…Faces of Love has made the Persian originals into real and moving English poems." -Michael Dirda, The Washington Post For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. *This audiobook includes a downloadable PDF that contains notes from the book."
Dick Davis, Hafez, Jahan Malek Khatun, Obayd-E Zakani (Author), Dick Davis, Ramiz Monsef, Tala Ashe (Narrator)
Audiobook
The Mirror of My Heart: A Thousand Years of Persian Poetry by Women
"An anthology of verse by women poets writing in Persian, most of whom have never been translated into English before, from acclaimed scholar and translator Dick Davis. The Mirror of My Heart is a unique and captivating collection of eighty-three Persian women poets, many of whom wrote anonymously or were punished for their outspokenness. One of the very first Persian poets was a woman (Rabe'eh, who lived over a thousand years ago) and there have been women poets writing in Persian in virtually every generation since that time until the present. Before the twentieth century they tended to come from society's social extremes--many were princesses, some were entertainers, but many were wives and daughters who wrote simply for their own entertainment, and they were active in many different countries - Iran, India, Afghanistan, and areas of central Asia that are now Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan. From Rabe'eh in the tenth century to Fatemeh Ekhtesari in the twenty-first, the women poets found in The Mirror of My Heart write across the millennium on such universal topics as marriage, children, political climate, death, and emancipation, recreating life from hundreds of years ago that is strikingly similar to our own today and giving insight into their experiences as women throughout different points of Persian history. The volume is introduced and translated by Dick Davis, a scholar and translator of Persian literature as well as a gifted poet in his own right. *This audiobook includes a PDF that contains notes from the book."
Dick Davis (Author), Dick Davis, Mozhan Marnò, Serena Manteghi, Tala Ashe (Narrator)
Audiobook
"The Persian epic that inspired Eric Clapton's unforgettable love song 'Layla' and that Lord Byron called 'the Romeo and Juliet of the East,' in a masterly new translation The iconic love story of the Middle East, by a twelfth-century Persian poet who has been compared to Shakespeare for his subtlety, inventiveness, and dramatic force, Layli and Majnun tells of star-crossed lovers whose union is tragically thwarted by their families and whose passion continues to ripple out across the centuries. Theirs is a love that lasts a lifetime, and in Nezami's immortal telling, erotic longing blends with spiritual self-denial in an allegory of Sufi aspiration, as the amenities of civilization give way to the elemental wilderness, desire is sublimated into a mystical renunciation of the physical world, and the soul confronts its essence. This is a tour de force of Persian literature, in a translation that captures the extraordinary power and virtuosity of the original. This audiobook includes a PDF that contains notes from the book."
Nezami Ganjavi (Author), Dick Davis, Peter Ganim, Sean Rohani, Serena Manteghi (Narrator)
Audiobook
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