The Arabian Nights

The Arabian Nights book cover — The Arabian Nights Retold by Wafa Tarnowska Illustrated by Carole Hénaff Barefoot Books Step inside a story

The Arabian Nights — page 1 — rulers Introduction The Arabian Nights or The Thousand and One Nights is a collection of fables fairy tales adventure stories and historical anecdotes from across India Persia and the Arab world The stories were collected over several centuries by storytellers authors translators and scholars The oldest Arabic manuscript a few handwritten pages discovered in 1948 comes from Syria and dates back to the early 800s The stories are also mentioned in Ibn Al Nadim's Fihrist Catalogue of Books in Baghdad in 938 AD A fourteenth century Syrian manuscript now in the Bibliothèque Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris contains some three hundred tales Their roots may reach back for many centuries yet the stories in The Arabian Nights continue to captivate The beauty of these tales lies in the way they weave the extraordinary and the supernatural into everyday life Ordinary men and women meet demons and genies princes and princesses ghouls and magicians Kings and queens disguise themselves as ordinary people to meet their subjects and learn to become better

The Arabian Nights — page 2 — And through simple storytelling Shahrazade a beautiful and clever woman changes an angry and violent man Shahriyar into a patient generous and kindhearted husband and father The Arabian Nights has become part of the world's cultural heritage The tales have left their mark on music art and common speech The expressions open sesame and genie as well as images of flying carpets and magic lamps are now widely used in films television and children's books When I was a girl growing up in Lebanon my grandmother Hanneh had only to say Kaan ya maa kaan in Arabic or Once there was and there was not for all the children to gather around to hear her retell a story from The Arabian Nights Many of the stories she told had courageous heroines and princesses who helped their men in time of need Hanneh had much in common with these heroines the daughter of a village sheikh she left her father's house as a bride decked with gold jewelry sold every one of her bracelets and necklaces to educate her children then used the rest of her dowry to dig a well in the house so that the family would have running water I dedicate this book to her memory Wafa Tarnowska

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