A tragic epic love story by one of the greatest medieval Persian romance poets, in a modern-verse English translation

Based on historical characters of the seventh-century Iranian court and written 850 years ago, the narrative poem about Khosrow and Shirin shares a shelf with the most intensely romantic classic stories, from Tristan and Isolde to Layla and Majnun to Romeo and Juliet.

The love between an Iranian prince (Khosrow) and an Armenian princess (Shirin) is at the centre of this tumultuous tale in which the powers of politics and warfare intertwine with no less powerful forces of erotic desire and the quest for personal and spiritual fulfilment.

Dick Davis's translation has captured the energy and poetry of Nezami’s original in modern verse. Khosrow and Shirin will enchant both the classicist and the general reader, to captivate a new audience for Nezami’s masterpiece.

Before Romeo and Juliet, there was Khosrow and Shirin. The medieval Persian epic ‘Khosrow and Shirin’ is a rich and gloriously excessive love story -- Michael Dirda * The Washington Post *

Nezami Ganjavi (Author)
Nezami Ganjavi (1141-1209) was a twelfth-century Persian poet. His accessible, realist style transformed Middle Eastern epic poetry, and he is now widely considered to be the greatest romantic poet in all of Persian literature.

Dick Davis (Introducer, Translator)
Dick Davis is an English-American poet and translator. Before the Islamic Revolution, Davis lived in Iran and taught English at the University of Tehran. Davis is now a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and is considered to be one of the world's foremost translators of Persian literature.