Arabian Nights. Annotated edition

About the book

A cornerstone of universal literature, the Arabian Nights have inspired numerous authors, from Charles Dickens and Edgar Allan Poe to Naguib Mahfouz, Clarice Lispector and Angela Carter.

In this luxurious illustrated and annotated edition, literary historian Paulo Lemos Horta and poet and translator Yasmine Seale present an exceptional new selection of stories taken from the Nights, including the beloved original stories as well as the famous added stories later, like “Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp” or “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves”, rescuing the Nights from the dusty nineteenth-century showcases and making them look vibrant and current for the modern reader.

For centuries, readers have watched in shock at King Shahriyar’s bloody revenge, enjoyed Sinbad’s thrilling seafaring adventures, and been completely and utterly enthralled by Shahrazad’s stories of passionate romances and voyages to fantastical places. But for a long time, the shadow of nineteenth-century translations has tarnished the collection’s appeal.

This new translation that we present here, absolutely contemporary as well as lyrical, breaks with the dynastic line of male translators, eliminating any trace of orientalism from the stories but maintaining their vitality and charm.

This volume includes the most popular stories, from “The Story of Sinbad the Sailor” to “The Story of the Fisherman and the Jinni”, along with other less known ones, such as “The Story of Delilah the Devious”, in which the Ingenious heroine takes the reader through the daily life of merchants and traders in a populous Arab metropolis. And based on the most recent studies, The Thousand and One Nights. Annotated edition incorporates the stories of Hanna Diyab that for centuries were considered creations of French origin, but which have recently been shown to belong to the Arab narrative tradition.

Following the turbulent evolution of the Nights, Horta also offers a series of exhaustive notes that provide the reader with the necessary information so that they can appreciate the stories in their context, guiding us between ghouls, jinn and other supernatural creatures and fantastic elements that have attracted and readers have always been fascinated. Profuse and beautifully illustrated with works from both European and Arabic and Persian art, usually ignored in Western editions, The Thousand and One Nights.

Annotated edition expand the visual dimension of the stories, underlining the dialogue that they have maintained – and still maintain – with the art world. Together with the emotional preface written by the novelist Omar El Akkad and an instructive postface in which the Nights expert, Robert Irwin, analyzes the roots of Hanna Diyab’s stories, Horta and Seale have shaped an impressive edition that will fascinate both to the fan as well as to the newcomer to the tales of One Thousand and One Nights.

A careful selection of stories, along with numerous comments and hundreds of images, make this publication a unique collection of the most famous stories of all time.