one thousand and one nights by hanan al shaykh

That's where al-Shaykh first heard them as a child. Scheherazade and her stories have become a touchstone of Arab culture, passed down orally for centuries, put to paper in countless editions and even serialized for the radio. The king spares her life so he can hear the rest of the story the next night. 'She had a plan,' al-Shaykh says, 'a very eloquent and very civilized plan to use her art to humanize him and stop this bloodbath.'Įvery night, Scheherazade starts telling the king a story, then stops at a crucial moment, just as dawn breaks.

The killing continues until Scheherazade, the daughter of the king's vizier, offers herself as the king's bride. 'From that night, he decreed a law that he will marry a virgin every single day and deflower her at night, and then kill her at dawn,' al-Shaykh tells NPR's Rachel Martin. Lebanese author Hanan al-Shaykh explains what happens next:

They start with a king who discovers that his wife is having an affair. The stories of One Thousand and One Nights are among the world's most famous works of literature. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. The great cities and thriving trade routes of the Islamic world provide the setting for these stories that employ supernatural mystery and intense realism to portray the deep and endless drama of human experience.Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title One Thousand And One Nights Subtitle A Retelling Author Hanan al-Shaykh In turns erotic, brutal, witty, poetic and complex, the tales tell of love and marriage, power and punishment, rich and poor, and the endless trials and uncertainties of fate. This adaptation unearths the true character of One Thousand and One Nights as it is in the oldest Arabic manuscripts.

The tales that unfold are erotic, violent, supernatural and endlessly surprising.The web of tales woven by Shahrazad were exoticised and bowdlerised in the West under the title of the Arabian Nights.

Shahrazad prolongs her life by keeping the King engrossed in a web of stories that never ends - a fascinating kaleidoscope of life, love and destiny. This unique edition will unlock the ancient tales for a new generation of readers and performers.Written by Arabic writers from tales gathered in India, Persia and across the great Arab Empire, the One Thousand and One Nights are the never-ending stories told by Shahrazad night after night, under sentence of death, to the king Shahrayar who has vowed to marry a virgin every night and kill her in the morning. One of the world's great folk story-cycles adapted for the stage by leading theatre maker Tim Supple, from the stories written by the seminal Lebanese novelist Hanan al-Shaykh.

One thousand and one nights by hanan al shaykh