Overview

Scheherazade’s Children gathers together leading scholars to explore the reverberations of the tales of the Arabian Nights across a startlingly wide and transnational range of cultural endeavors. The contributors, drawn from a wide array of disciplines, extend their inquiries into the book’s metamorphoses on stage and screen as well as in literature—from India to Japan, from Sanskrit mythology to British pantomime, from Baroque opera to puppet shows. Their highly original research illuminates little-known manifestations of the Nights, and provides unexpected contexts for understanding the book’s complex history. Polemical issues are thereby given unprecedented and enlightening interpretations. Organized under the rubrics of Translating, Engaging, and Staging, these essays view the Nights corpus as a uniquely accretive cultural bundle that absorbs the works upon which it has exerted influence. In this view, the Arabian Nights is a dynamic, living and breathing cross-cultural phenomenon that has left its mark on fields as disparate as the European novel and early Indian cinema. While scholarly, the writers’ approach is also lively and entertaining, and the book is richly illustrated with unusual materials to deliver a sparkling and highly original exploration of the Arabian Nights’ radiating influence on world literature, performance, and culture.

Full Product Details

Author:   Philip F. Kennedy ,  Marina Warner
Publisher:   New York University Press
Imprint:   New York University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.60cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.658kg
ISBN:  

9781479857098

ISBN 10:   1479857092
Pages:   466
Publication Date:   08 November 2013
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

"List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction Part I 1 The Sea-Born Tale 2 Re-Orienting William Beckford 3 The Collector of WorldsPart II 4 The Porter and Portability 5 The Rings of Budur and Qamar al-Zaman 6 White Magic 7 The Arabian Nights and the Origins of the Western Novel 8 ""A Covenant for Reconciliation"" 9 Translating Destiny 10 Borges and the Missing Pages of the Nights 11 The Politics of Conversation 12 Sindbad the SailorPart III 13 The Arabian Nights in British Pantomime 14 The Arabian Nights in Traditional Japanese Performing Arts 15 ""Nectar If You Taste and Go, Poison If You Stay"" 16 Scheherazade, Bluebeard, and Theatrical Curiosity 17 The Takarazuka Revue and the Fantasy of ""Arabia"" in Japan 18 Thieves of the Orient AfterwordList of Stories Selected Bibliography About the Contributors Index The illustrations appear in two groups, following pages 176 and 224. For information about the illustrations, see the list of illustrations on page ix."

Reviews

The Arabian Nights as much as any work created the category now known as 'world literature.' The lively and lucid essays in Scheherazade's Children explore the fascination and influence The Nights have exerted in various cultures and the book's sometimes surprising and often amusing metamorphoses. -Daniel Beaumont, author of Slave of Desire: Sex, Love, and Death in the 1001 Nights [A] splendid recently published anthology. -Patricia Storace,The New York Review of Books [T]he two editors, both of them well established figures in their relative fields, have done excellent work in producing a volume that has its own internal logic ... The contributions to this volume are all, by any yardstick one may wish to apply, superb essays in cultural studies, and, in many cases comparative literature studies. A distinguished contribution to Arabian Nights studies. -Roger Allen, University of Pennsylvania The Arabian Nights is one of a kind in leaving a lasting mark on various fields of knowledge, including art, theater, screen, and literature. Until the appearance of the Arabian Nights, no mythical character had captured such wide and global attention as Scheherazade, with her wit, intelligence, and courage. The work, like its evolving tales, continues to generate scholarly studies and diverse cultural work of merit. Kennedy and Warner have put together such a book. Scheherazade's Children provides a solid testimony to the power of this fascinating world classic, which transcends countries, languages, and cultures. The 18 essays, all by renowned scholars, explore compelling topics that will help anyone delve into the secret world of imagination that the Arabian Nights initiated. The extensive examination of the different translations of the Nights is impressive and illuminating: it prepares readers of this book to make their choice from the myriad of renderings to build their own appreciations and evaluations. And the volume's scholarly analyses will further the reader's understanding and enjoyment of a classic work. This volume will enchant readers across all disciplines. Summing Up: Highly recommended. -A.S. Jawad,Choice Beautifully illustrated, this title concludes with a list of the stories, their translations, and adaptations. Though the essays take up academic subjects, they are accessible to general readers. -Library Journal It is almost impossible now for Western writing not to draw on the Nights. This collection is a call to us to go back to that most wonderful of books, Alf layla wa-layla, and read and reread it endlessly, and learn from it as equals. -Roz Kaveney,Times Literary Supplement These scrupulously documented essays justify study of the Nights as 'one of the wellsprings of World Literature' that continues to draw readers, scholars, translators, and artists into a theatrical, imaginary land, which, like the narrator herself, casts an entrancing spell and proves inexhaustible in meanings, 'blending cultural specificities into one vast Prient of the mind.' -Publishers Weekly

These scrupulously documented essays justify study of the Nights as 'one of the wellsprings of World Literature' that continues to draw readers, scholars, translators, and artists into a theatrical, imaginary land, which, like the narrator herself, casts an entrancing spell and proves inexhaustible in meanings, 'blending cultural specificities into one vast Orient of the mind.' --Publishers Weekly Beautifully illustrated, this title concludes with a list of the stories, their translations, and adaptations. Though the essays take up academic subjects, they are accessible to general readers. --Library Journal

[T]he two editors, both of them well established figures in their relative fields, have done excellent work in producing a volume that has its own internal logic... The contributions to this volume are all, by any yardstick one may wish to apply, superb essays in cultural studies, and, in many cases comparative literature studies. A distinguished contribution to Arabian Nights studies. -Roger Allen, University of Pennsylvania It is almost impossible now for Western writing not to draw on the Nights. This collection is a call to us to go back to that most wonderful of books, Alf layla wa-layla, and read and reread it endlessly, and learn from it as equals. -Roz Kaveney,Times Literary Supplement The Arabian Nights as much as any work created the category now known as 'world literature.' The lively and lucid essays in Scheherazade's Children explore the fascination and influence The Nights have exerted in various cultures and the book's sometimes surprising and often amusing metamorphoses. -Daniel Beaumont, author of Slave of Desire: Sex, Love, and Death in the 1001 Nights The Arabian Nights is one of a kind in leaving a lasting mark on various fields of knowledge, including art, theater, screen, and literature. Until the appearance of the Arabian Nights, no mythical character had captured such wide and global attention as Scheherazade, with her wit, intelligence, and courage. The work, like its evolving tales, continues to generate scholarly studies and diverse cultural work of merit. Kennedy and Warner have put together such a book. Scheherazade's Children provides a solid testimony to the power of this fascinating world classic, which transcends countries, languages, and cultures. The 18 essays, all by renowned scholars, explore compelling topics that will help anyone delve into the secret world of imagination that the Arabian Nights initiated. The extensive examination of the different translations of the Nights is impressive and illuminating: it prepares readers of this book to make their choice from the myriad of renderings to build their own appreciations and evaluations. And the volume's scholarly analyses will further the reader's understanding and enjoyment of a classic work. This volume will enchant readers across all disciplines. Summing Up: Highly recommended. -A.S. Jawad,Choice [A] splendid recently published anthology. -Patricia Storace,The New York Review of Books Beautifully illustrated, this title concludes with a list of the stories, their translations, and adaptations. Though the essays take up academic subjects, they are accessible to general readers. -Library Journal These scrupulously documented essays justify study of the Nights as 'one of the wellsprings of World Literature' that continues to draw readers, scholars, translators, and artists into a theatrical, imaginary land, which, like the narrator herself, casts an entrancing spell and proves inexhaustible in meanings, 'blending cultural specificities into one vast Prient of the mind.' -Publishers Weekly

Author Information

Philip F. Kennedy (Editor) Philip F. Kennedy is Professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies and Comparative Literature at New York University, and General Editor of the Library of Arabic Literature. He is the author of Recognition in the Arabic Narrative Tradition. Marina Warner (Editor) Marina Warner DBE is Professor of English and Creative Writing at Birkbeck College, University of London; a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford; and a Fellow of the British Academy. Her book Stranger Magic: Charmed States and the Arabian Nights won the 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism, as well as the 2013 Sheikh Zayed Book Award.

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