Shahnameh by Ferdowsi to be Published in English Prose

The Shahnameh by Ferdowsi is set to be published in English prose. Arash Irani reports that Masoud Raji, a poet from Nishapur who has been nominated for the title of the world's best poet in 2003 by the World Poets Association in Switzerland, is currently translating the Shahnameh into English. Born in 1941 in Nishapur (Khorasan Province), Raji has previously published works of several great poets in Persian. His poem 'Swiss Experience' was selected as a nominee for the best poem of 2003 by the poets' association. In an interview with the Heritage News website (Iran's Cultural Heritage News Agency), Raji explained that the reason for translating the Shahnameh into prose is to facilitate understanding of this classic Persian work for English speakers and Iranians living abroad, stating that many Iranians who have lived outside the country for years do not have a strong command of Persian and do not understand the heavy vocabulary of the Shahnameh. Foreigners are also unfamiliar with Iranian poetry. Therefore, he aims to translate the Shahnameh into English prose so that Iranians can grasp the original meaning and understand the poetry easily, while foreigners can learn about the themes of the greatest epic work in Persian literature. Hakim Abolqasem Ferdowsi, the great epic poet of Iran, was born in 329 or 330 AH in a village called Baj in the Tus region and passed away there around 411 or 416 AH. There is little knowledge about how the Shahnameh began and ended, but it is known that around 370 AH, at the age of forty or forty-one, he was encouraged by a friend to complete the unfinished work of Daqiqi, a famous poet of the Samanid era, and to compose ancient Persian stories in verse. Experts believe that some verses of the Shahnameh indicate that Ferdowsi gradually lost all his wealth and fell into poverty while working on it. It is also evident that after thirty years of great hardship, poverty, and hunger, he finally completed his great work in 400 AH and later presented this unparalleled masterpiece to the court of Mahmud of Ghazni in his later years. Masoud Raji, the translator of Ferdowsi's works into English prose, noted in another part of his conversation with Heritage News that these translations will be published on the Shahnameh.com website after the completion of each section.