Aria Fani has published on Tehran Bureau a review of my book, The Teller of Tales, which is a translation of the first five stories of Shahnameh, The Book of Kings, also known as the Persian (or Iranian) national epic. Fani calls my translation “delightful to read,” but what I like most about the review is that he places the book in the context of how the Shahnameh has “dominated and shaped the national psyche of Iranian;” and he gets the through-line of the stories I chose to translate, pointing out that “the nature of the social order is the central theme” of the book.
I didn’t do much to promote the book when it came out in April because my life simply did not permit it, but I will be starting to get the word out little by little. You can order the book from the publisher, Junction Press, and if you’re interested in my giving a reading/talk on my translation, you can contact me here. The Shahnameh is a book that would be of interest in the context of a wide range of artistic, scholarly, intellectual and even political concerns.
I’ve posted a little bit about the Shahnameh already. (Here, here and here.)
