• The Lion and the Throne: Stories from the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi, Vol. I
  
  "The Shahnameh is the Persian national epic, a poem of more than 40,000 lines completed by the poet Ferdowsi in about the year 1000. Some 30 years ago Yarshater rendered into elegant modern Persian prose the opening narratives of the epic, and now Dick Davis, the foremost translator of Persian literature into English, has translated those tales and added two additional narratives taken directly from the epic poetry. The book also contains a short summary of the entire Shahnameg, an essay by Stuart Cary Welch entitled "Illustrating a Shahnameh," and other appendixes. The prose rendering is as smooth and polished as Davis's translations always are. The publishers outdid themselves in producing a beautiful book that is in many ways reminiscent of a medieval Persian manuscript. Illustrated with numerous paintings, details of paintings and cartouches, section headings in gold ink, flowers at chapter heads, decorative borders and many other details, the volume is a rich and evocative example of bookmaking. More a coffee-table book than a scholarly volume, recommended for general readers and undergraduates."
  - - Choice Magazine
  
  
• Fathers and Sons: Stories from the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi, Volume II
  
  "This splendid book is the second in a projected set of three volumes that will recount all the major events of the Persian national epic, the Shahnama or Book of Kings. Written in rhyming couplets by the poet Firdawsi and completed in about 1010, the epic runs to more than 40,000 lines. Volume 1, Ehsan Yarshater's The Lion and the Throne (CH, May'98), was translated by Davis largely from an earlier Persian prose translation. Davis translated the present volume directly from the original text and presents it to the reader as a felicitous mixture of prose and verse. Fathers and Sons begins where volume 1 left off, recounting the epic from the legend of Seyavash to the death of Rostam, bringing to a close the purely legendary part of Shahnama. Davis provides an informative introduction as well as a translation that is a joy to read. This reviewer particularly welcomed an increased amount of verse in this volume. Aimed at a wide and varied audience, not exclusively academic, these volumes appeal to the eye as well as the ear. Like its predecessor, this volume is beautifully produced in every respect. Large academic and general libraries collecting Middle Eastern literature and cultural history."
  -- W. L. Hanaway, emeritus, University of Pennsylvania

 

• Sunset of Empire

  With this volume, Davis completes his prose and verse translation of most of the Shahnama, the Persian national epic, which Firdawsi completed in about 1010 CE. The first two volumes, The Lion and the Throne (CH, May'98) and Fathers and Sons (CR, Feb'01), rendered the mythical and legendary parts of the epic; the present volume presents the "historical" section. Davis's translation is smooth, elegant, and up-to-date, with no attempt at "stained-glass" effects. He found a felicitous combination of prose and verse that seems just right for its purpose. The verse sections are particularly good, and one wishes for more. This set supersedes The Epic of the Kings, Reuben Levy's translation (CH. Apr'68), hitherto the standard modern prose rendition. The physical book is sumptuous. The design is consistent throughout the three volumes, but the opulence seems to increase with each. No detail is overlooked, and the publishers out do themselves here in the taste and splendor of their reproductions of Persian miniature paintings. Summing Up: Essential. No collection of Middle East studies or art history should be without this three-volume set.

  - -W. L. Hanaway, emeritus, University of Pennsylvania.

  Shahnameh: Persian Book of Kings

“It takes Dick Davis’s delightful and animated translation of Persia’s classic 623 pages to get around to banning wine-drinking, a prohibition ended by royal decree two pages later, with 257 pages of music, seduction, and polo matches left to go. All this action, myth, and history fairly fly off the page, for Davis renders Ferdowsi’s 50,000 sesquipedalian lines of poetry as a prose narrative that here and there erupts into sonnet-sized snatches of verse. The scheme works brilliantly.… ‘That poetry which is the most difficult,” wrote Irshad Ullah Khan, “has been rendered into English … with the comparative strength of the inspirational truth and elegance of the Persian. His work shall not die.’ It is hard to vouch for any volume’s immortality, but this ranks among the best Persian translations of the last thousand years."

-- Russel Seitz, The New Criterion, November 2006

• Epic and Sedition: The Case of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh
  
  "Davis explores the main themes of the Shahnameh with great insight and provides some convincing answers to these questions. In doing so, he rightly emphasizes the poet's own dramatic conception of the work, thus rescuing it from the notion that it is simply a versified chronicle of the kings of Iran. Davis discusses complex interlocking themes cogently. The main issue emerges with great clarity and force."
  - - Times Literary Supplement
  
  "Davis has succeeded in bringing alive the issues and the conflicts which inform the Shahnama in a study which will undoubtedly remain important for many years to come."
  - - Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society
  
  "Epic and Sedition is the best book on the Shahnameh to have appeared for many years, we recommend that all those concerned with literature and culture read it."
  - - Dr. Amin Banani in Iran Nameh
  
  "[Epic and Sedition] can be considered as the best book on the Shahnameh yet written, as an introduction/guide to the work, in its drawing of attention to which are the most significant narratives in the poem, and as a description of Ferdowsi's poetic art."
  - - Dr. Ehsan Yarshater in Iranshenasi
  
  
• My Uncle Napoleon: A Comic Novel
  "An uproarious and endearing Iranian novel... one of the most entertaining books we're likely to see this year."
  - - Kirkus Reviews
  
  "A giddily uproarious mixture of farce and slapstick."
  - - The Atlantic Monthly
  
  "My Uncle Napoleon should leave properly adjusted American readers desperate for more of this howlingly funny -- not to mention tender, salacious and magical -- Iranian import."
  - - Cleveland Plain Dealer
  
  "My Uncle Napoleon is a surprising novel, a raunchy, irreverent, hilarious farce wrapped around a core of quiet sorrow."
  - - The Washington Post
  
  "It is so surely told, so funny, true, and ultimately heart-rending, it's absolutely clear why My Uncle Napoleon is loved in its homeland."
  - - The Baltimore Sun
  
  "Readers can gain a more balanced impression of Iran from perusing this novel, which looks at life from the kind of humorous perspective few Westerners may associate with the current regime in that country."
  - - Christian Science Monitor
  
  "The farcical plot dashes along at a rapid pace and there is never a dull stretch. In this English version, much of the reader's enjoyment comes from the outstanding quality of the translation."
  - - Choice
  
  
  
  
• Borrowed Ware: Medieval Persian Epigrams
  
  "Dick Davis's translation of the best of Persia's medieval short poetry, borrowed ware, is a wonderful book, suffused with love, beautifully produced and with a comprehensive introduction to Persian courtly poetry."
  - - The Independent

  "Mr. Davis has put what he called "Medieval Persian Epigrams" into easy, idiomatic English and provided an engaging introduction to the Persian world and an explanation of the code words that might otherwise puzzle modern readers. These authors were court poets, highly valued and well rewarded for wit, elegance, and a light touch. Originality of theme was not necessary, but there are surprises among the lovers' laments and financial complaints. Jahan Khatun, one of the few women poets, considered erotic reform but decided to "renounce renumerations." (A contemporary accused her of being a prostitute, but Mr. Davis points out that he "said this kind of thing" about everybody.) The poems are faced by versions in Persian scripts, making the collection pretty as well as amusing."
  - - The Atlantic Monthly

  "Many of the best poems in borrowed ware are mystical, and Davis is probably the first translator to have succeeded in conveying their intensity of focus. . . . Anyone doubting Davis's own mastery of [poetry] should turn to borrowed ware. This anthology is the most personal of Davis's excellent translations from the Persian. . . . Here, as in Western poetry of a similar period, the subjects are mostly religious and amorous, with some politics thrown in and a good deal of flattery for patrons. Yet these subjects, through their tone and imagery, invite into the book the whole range of that far-off culture's concerns."
  - -Times Literary Supplement