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The Arabian Nights - A Companion (Paperback, Wyd ed.)
Loot Price: R342
Discovery Miles 3 420
You Save: R67
(16%)
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The Arabian Nights - A Companion (Paperback, Wyd ed.)
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List price R409
Loot Price R342
Discovery Miles 3 420
You Save R67 (16%)
Expected to ship within 12 - 17 working days
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"The Arabian Nights" has become a synonym for the fabulous and the
exotic. Every child is familiar with the stories of Aladdin, Sinbad
the Sailor and Ali Baba. Yet very few people, even specialists in
oriential literature, have a clear idea of when the book was
written or what exactly it is. Far from being a batch of stories
for children, "The Arabian Nights" contains hundreds of narratives
of all kinds - fables, epics, erotica, debates, fairy tales,
political allegories, mystical anecdotes and comedies. It is a
labyrinth of stories within stories. Widely held in contempt in the
Middle East for its frivolity and occasional obscenity, the work
has nevertheless had a major influence on European and American
culture, to the extent that the story collection must be considered
as a key work in Western literature. A full understanding of the
writings of Voltaire, Dickens, Melville, Proust and Borges, or
indeed of the origins of science fiction, is impossible without
some familiarity with the stories of the "Nights". This companion
aims to guide the reader into this labyrinth of storytelling. It
traces the development of the stories from prehistoric India and
Pharaonic Egypt to modern times, and explores the history of
translation and imitation. Above all, it uses the stories as a
guide to the social history and counter-culture of the medieval
Near East and the world of the storyteller, the snake charmer, the
burglar, the sorcerer, the drug-addict, the treasure hunter and the
adulterer.
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