A cornerstone of world literature and a monument to the power of
storytelling, the Arabian Nights has inspired countless authors, from
Charles Dickens and Edgar Allan Poe to Naguib Mahfouz, Clarice
Lispector, and Angela Carter. Now, in this lavishly designed and
illustrated edition of The Annotated Arabian Nights, the acclaimed
literary historian Paulo Lemos Horta and the brilliant poet and
translator Yasmine Seale present a splendid new selection of tales from
the Nights, featuring treasured original stories as well as later
additions including "Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp" and "Ali Baba and
the Forty Thieves," and definitively bringing the Nights out of
Victorian antiquarianism and into the twenty-first century.
For centuries, readers have been haunted by the homicidal King
Shahriyar, thrilled by gripping tales of Sinbad's seafaring adventures,
and held utterly, exquisitely captive by Shahrazad's stories of
passionate romances and otherworldly escapades. Yet for too long, the
English-speaking world has relied on dated translations by Richard
Burton, Edward Lane, and other nineteenth-century adventurers. Seale's
distinctly contemporary and lyrical translations break decisively with
this masculine dynasty, finally stripping away the deliberate exoticism
of Orientalist renderings while reclaiming the vitality and delight of
the stories, as she works with equal skill in both Arabic and French.
Included within are famous tales, from "The Story of Sinbad the Sailor"
to "The Story of the Fisherman and the Jinni," as well as lesser-known
stories such as "The Story of Dalila the Crafty," in which the cunning
heroine takes readers into the everyday life of merchants and
shopkeepers in a crowded metropolis, and "The Story of the Merchant and
the Jinni," an example of a ransom frame tale in which stories are
exchanged to save a life. Grounded in the latest scholarship, The
Annotated Arabian Nights also incorporates the Hanna Diyab stories, for
centuries seen as French forgeries but now acknowledged, largely as a
result of Horta's pathbreaking research, as being firmly rooted in the
Arabic narrative tradition. Horta not only takes us into the astonishing
twists and turns of the stories' evolution. He also offers comprehensive
notes on just about everything readers need to know to appreciate the
tales in context, and guides us through the origins of ghouls, jinn, and
other supernatural elements that have always drawn in and delighted
readers.
Beautifully illustrated throughout with art from Europe and the Arab and
Persian world, the latter often ignored in English-language editions,
The Annotated Arabian Nights expands the visual dimensions of the
stories, revealing how the Nights have always been--and still are--in
dialogue with fine artists. With a poignant autobiographical foreword
from best-selling novelist Omar El Akkad and an illuminating afterword
on the Middle Eastern roots of Hanna Diyab's tales from noted scholar
Robert Irwin, Horta and Seale have created a stunning edition of the
Arabian Nights that will enchant and inform both devoted and novice
readers alike.
