We talk to scholar Elias Muhanna about translating a magical, delightful eighteenth-century travelogue. In 1707 Hanna Diyab journeyed from his native Aleppo as translator to a rapacious and sometimes ridiculous Frenchman. He survived a shipwreck and a pirate attack, met King Louis XIV, and gave TheThousand and One Nights translator Antoine Galland a dozen new stories. Cheated out of a promised job in Paris, he eventually returned to Syria, where he wrote it all up in his old age. 

Show Notes

You can download a free Arabic PDF of the Book of Travelson the Library of Arabic Literature website.

You can read more about Diyab (and speculation about whether he was the “real Aladdin”) in Paolo Lemos Horta’s Marvellous Thieves: Secret Authors of the Arabian Nights.

You can read Yasmine Seale’s stand-alone translation of Aladdin, introduced by Lemos Horta, or get her new Annotated Arabian Nights, edited and introduced by Lemos Horta, out this month from WW Norton.

We talk to scholar Elias Muhanna about translating a magical, delightful eighteenth-century travelogue. In 1707 Hanna Diyab journeyed from his native Aleppo as translator to a rapacious and sometimes ridiculous Frenchman. He survived a shipwreck and a pirate attack, met King Louis XIV, and gave The Thousand and One Nights translator Antoine Galland a dozen new stories. Cheated out of a promised job in Paris, he eventually returned to Syria, where he wrote it all up in his old age. 
Show Notes
You can download a <a href="https://www.libraryofarabicliterature.org/books/9781479806300/the-book-of-travels/">free Arabic PDF of the Book of Travels</a> on the Library of Arabic Literature website.
You can read more about Diyab (and <a href="https://time.com/5592303/aladdin-true-history/">speculation about whether he was the “real Aladdin”</a>) in Paolo Lemos Horta’s <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674986596">Marvellous Thieves: Secret Authors of the Arabian Nights</a>.
You can read Yasmine Seale’s <a href="https://amzn.to/3r07DuE">stand-alone translation of Aladdin</a>, introduced by Lemos Horta, or get her new <a href="https://amzn.to/3nE4a2D">Annotated Arabian Nights</a>, edited and introduced by Lemos Horta, out this month from WW Norton.

BULAQ is a book-centric podcast co-hosted by Ursula Lindsey (in Amman, Jordan) and M Lynx Qualey (in Rabat, Morocco). It focuses on Arabic literature in translation and is named after the first printing press established in Egypt in 1820. Produced by Sowt.

BULAQ is a book-centric podcast co-hosted by Ursula Lindsey (in Amman, Jordan) and M Lynx Qualey (in Rabat, Morocco). It focuses on Arabic literature in translation and is named after the first printing press established in Egypt in 1820. Produced by Sowt.

BULAQ | بولاق

BULAQ is a podcast about contemporary writing from and about the Middle East and North Africa. We talk about books written in Aleppo, Cairo, Marrakech and beyond. We look at the Arab region through the lens of literature, and we look at literature -- what it does, why it matters, how it relates to society and history and politics -- from the point of view of this part of the world.  BULAQ is co-produced by ArabLit and The Arabist and is hosted by Ursula Lindsey and M Lynx Qualey.

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