Jerome W. Clinton was professor emeritus of Near Eastern studies at Princeton University and a scholar of Iranian culture and society. Clinton taught Persian language and literature, as well as courses in Near Eastern literature, translation, classical Islamic civilization and the cultural history of Iran. His most widely acclaimed work was the study and translation of the Iranian national epic, the Shahnama (The Book of Kings). Clinton also wrote The Divan of Manuchihri Damghani: A Critical Study, co-wrote Modern Persian: Spoken and Written, and translated The Tragedy of Sohrab and Rostam and In the Dragon's Claws from the Shahnama. He won the Lois Roth Persian Translation Prize in 2002 from the American Institute of Iranian Studies for In the Dragon's Claws.