Farzad and Rhonda Dibachi have translated the complete Shahnameh into modern English verse, more than fifty thousand couplets in three volumes, working from the Moscow critical edition.

The poem is rendered in rhymed English couplets, so that the English can be read aloud as the Persian was. Names keep their Persian forms, and the words that have no English equal, such as farr, gorz and kamand, are kept and explained in the glossary.

Every book of the poem has a letter and number, every section a code, and every couplet a place within it. That one scheme ties together everything else:

A naqqal tells the Shahnameh as performance: voice, gesture and timing, sometimes with a staff in hand and a painted curtain behind. The best could hold a coffeehouse for weeks with a single cycle of stories. The name of this press is a promise to tell those stories again, whole, for readers who meet them first in English.

For feedback, corrections, suggested couplets, press enquiries and permission requests, write to Editor@newnaqqali.com. We read everything, and we credit every contribution we use.