From Kirkus Reviews
In The Dragon's Claws ($17.95 paperback original; Nov.; 144 pp.; 0-934211-56-6). A tale from the 11th-century epic the Shahnameh (or Book of Kings) comes to vivid life in Clinton's attractive blank verse translation. It's the story of brave young Prince Esfandiyar's battle with his country's aging soldier hero Rostam (whom English-language readers may have encountered in Matthew Arnold's narrative poem ``Sohrab and Rustum''): a task ordered by Shah Goshtasp, who fears either his son or his enemies may dethrone him. The tale exudes as much ironic fatalism as romance, and comes to a powerful conclusion with the stated realization that the defeat and humiliation of a national hero is a sin that must be expiated. A fine and moving introduction to one of world literature's least-known masterpieces. --
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Review
"Jerome Clinton with his lively and supple blank verse line continues to lift Ferdowsi out of the 10th and 11th centuries and beautifully into the present." --
Coleman Barks, author of The Essential Rumi"The story of Rostam and Esfandiyar tells a tale as old as Iran, of heroic action, ambition, pride, and the impossibility of breaking free from the wheeling spheres of Destiny.... Clinton's translation of a difficult text is skillful, elegant, sensitive and exciting, and maintains the tension up to its unavoidable climax. It is quickly evident that we are in the presence of a great work of literature, admirably recreated for the modern English-speaking reader." --
Charles Melville, Cambridge University
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