I was taking on the feat of reading in English the “Arabian Nights” or ألف ليلة و ليلة. In part to do my Arabic heritage justice whist acknowledging that the piece largely has Arabic, Egyptian, Indian, Persian, Mesopotamian influences. Boy, was I taken back a bit by surprise.
It’s like a Matryoshka doll (Russian doll), stories weaved within stories within other stories. As a kid, I obviously knew adaptations of Sinbad, Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves, Aladdin (haven’t reached the original stories in the Arabian Nights yet)
I was surprised the themes so far are pretty gory, gruesome, grim & obscene in some parts as in its erotic in same places, racist obviously, occult-like & I just learnt it’s banned in some places. I just thought it was this mythical fantastical fairytales you read to children..
So far it’s still great.
Apparently quote:
“Writers as diverse as Henry Fielding to Naguib Mahfouz have alluded to the collection by name in their own works. Other writers who have been influenced by the Nights include John Barth, Jorge Luis Borges, Salman Rushdie”
Apparently quote:
“Writers as diverse as Henry Fielding to Naguib Mahfouz have alluded to the collection by name in their own works. Other writers who have been influenced by the Nights include John Barth, Jorge Luis Borges, Salman Rushdie”
Orhan Pamuk, Goethe, Walter Scott, Thackeray, Wilkie Collins, Elizabeth Gaskell, Nodier, Flaubert, Marcel Schwob, Stendhal, Dumas, Gérard de Nerval, Gobineau, Pushkin, Tolstoy, Hofmannsthal, Conan Doyle, W. B. Yeats, H. G. Wells, Cavafy, Calvino ..
Georges Perec, H. P. Lovecraft, Marcel Proust, A. S. Byatt and Angela Carter.”
End quote.
End quote.
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