The author let us know that a man has slain his wife, that's all. One thing that astounds me : The brutal scenes were not in graphic details. Their actions made me want to pluck my own hair out, still I found myself flipping the pages at a very surprising speed.
The characters disgusted me, yet I found myself attracted to them in the most inexplicable way.
After this, every retelling of the arabian nights is going to feel fluffy. Burning with curiosity and utterly enamored by Shahrazad's art of storytelling, the king lets her live for just another day.Īwh Man. She spins a tale for him every night that leaves the king in suspense every morning.
To put an end to the bloodbath, the vizier's eldest daughter, Shahrazad, a woman of great intelligence offers herself to Shahrayar. From the palace, a lifeless body is delivered to a heartbroken family everyday. The king takes a girl every night, only to have her killed at the break of dawn. King Shahrayar's wife's betrayal evokes a horrendous bloodshed. "I was smitten," she says, "but at the same time I was exasperated because I really wanted her to poison him and finish with that.One thousand and one nights by Hanan Al-Shaykh is a mischievous, smutty yet brutal to the bone retelling of the Arabian Nights. 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. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title One Thousand And One Nights Subtitle A Retelling Author Hanan al-Shaykh
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