An illustrated children's book based on an ancient Persian tale. Inspired by Ferdowsi's Shahnameh.

Join Rostam along with his loyal steed, Rakhsh, on their journey to rescue the Shah. An exciting hero's quest with dragons, monsters and more!Inspired by Ferdowsi's Persian Epic Poem, The Shahnameh.

In a bustling marketplace in Iran, a traditional storyteller regales her audience with the tale of Prince Zal and the Simorgh. High up on the Mountain of Gems lives the Simorgh, a wise phoenix whose flapping wings disperse the seeds of life across the world. When King Sam commands that his long-awaited newborn son Zal be abandoned because of his white hair, the Simorgh adopts the baby and raises him alongside her own chicks and teaches him everything she knows. But when the king comes to regret his actions, Prince Zal will learn that the most important lesson of all is forgiveness. In this special edition, the story has been set to music, with each instrument representing a different character. You can download music composed by Amir Eslami (ney), Nilufar Habibian (qanun), Saeid Kord Mafi (santur), and Arash Moradi (tanbur). The music accompanies Sally Pomme Clayton's stunning narration of this classic tale from the Shahnameh.

When the brash warrior Sohraub and his army lay siege to the White Fortress, it's up to a lone heroine known as Gordafarid to find the courage to defend her people. Will she have what it takes to stop the mighty Sohraub? An empowering ancient Persian tale inspired by Ferdowsi's epic poem, The Shahnameh now an illustrated children's book.

Arash lives in the city of Ray in ancient Persia. At the age of twelve he is a capable archer. His dream is to shoot an arrow far enough to mark the border between the rival empires of Persia and Tooran. He believes that Simorgh the Queen of Birds has given him a message in the form of a riddle that will help him achieve his dream. But he is unaware that Ahriman the Devil and his Deevs are plotting against him. This book is inspired by the ancient story of Arash the Swift Arrow who with a single shot sent an arrow all the way to the Oxus River and marked the border between Persia and her rival empire of Tooran. The story introduces several other characters of Persian mythology including King Hooshang, Simorgh, Zahak, Ahriman and his Deevs, as well as the Zoroastrian philosophy of the constant battle between Good and Evil, to an audience of 8 to 12 year olds. Children with or without Persian heritage, might be more attracted to the mystery and intrigue in which the heroes are children their own age. 2nd edition includes references for further reading.

The village magician, Wafa, has gone missing. His star pupil Faiza thinks he has left a clue for her on a page of the Magicalis Bestialis. With the page open and marked with an X, she believes Wafa is telling them to seek out the Simurgh, the mythical birds who possess all the knowledge of the universe. She convinces her three classmates that they must seek the help of the Simurgh to find their teacher. She leads the boys on a difficult journey into the mountains in search of the elusive birds. A strange little man becomes their guide. However, they do not know he is a spirit leading them toward a battle between good and evil. Spirits, gods, and demons confront the four friends, who are being set up by the otherworldly forces for a much larger task than finding their teacher. The students were chosen to take sides in the battle which might spell the end of the world: a battle between the demons and the spirits.

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 A Penguin Classic 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 readers. 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. 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.

As a young warrior, Gordafarid was taught that her country's enemies were cruel, monstrous creatures. She believed this, until one day, she faced one of them, the mighty Sohrab in the battlefield. Based on the tale of Gordafarid from Ferdowsi's "Shahnameh" "The Princess Warrior" is a story about bravery and first love.

About These Crazy Nights, Moniro Ravanipour writes: "In 1981, less than three years after the Islamic Revolution in Iran, and in the heat of the Iran-Iraq War, I had become a night nurse in a hospital in Tehran, where every night I witnessed the arrival of the soldiers wounded on battlefronts. It was in the course of those nights that I also witnessed endless arguments and debates among patients with different ideologies and beliefs, including leftists, monarchists, nationalists, and staunch supporters of the new Islamic regime. Late at night, when the hospital ward was quiet, the patients would come and tell me stories about the battlefronts and their lives. The initial chapters of this novel, which was shaping in my mind at the time, were written in Iran and the concluding chapters were completed in the United States."This is a novel about the author's life, first in Iran and later as a refugee and immigrant in the United States. It is an important novel to be made available in English, especially in a country made up of immigrants, and in particular at this time. It tells us, in fact it actually shows us, why so many people around the world, whether from the Middle East, South America, or elsewhere, are inclined to leave their ancestral land, their hearth and home, and try, despite all the odds and obstacles, to take refuge to the land of the free.

"The publication of this book commemorates the one thousandth anniversary of the completion of the Shahnama, the Persian national epic, which was written down in more than 50,000 couplets by the poet Firdausi. It also celebrates the most lavishly illustrated version of this text, a manuscript produced for the Safavid Shah Tahmasp, who ruled Iran from 1524 to 1576"--Director's Foreword, p. 7.