Description
Book SynopsisThe adventures of the man who created Aladdin
The Book of Travels is ?anna Diyab's remarkable first-person account of his travels as a young man from his hometown of Aleppo to the court of Versailles and back again, which forever linked him to one of the most popular pieces of world literature, the Thousand and One Nights.
Diyab, a Maronite Christian, served as a guide and interpreter for the French naturalist and antiquarian Paul Lucas. Between 1706 and 1716, Diyab and Lucas traveled through Syria, Cyprus, Egypt, Tripolitania, Tunis, Italy, and France. In Paris, ?anna Diyab met Antoine Galland, who added to his wildly popular translation of the Thousand and One Nights several tales related by Diyab, including Aladdin and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. When Lucas failed to make good on his promise of a position for Diyab at Louis XIV's Royal Library, Diyab returned to Aleppo. In his old age, he wrote this engaging account of his youthful
Trade Review
Diyab’s memoir of his Mediterranean adventures is a mixture of clear-eyed observation and wide-eyed innocence, nicely captured by Muhanna’s lucid yet folksy English version...Throughout The Book of Travels, realistic details are suffused with a sense of the marvelous. * New York Review of Books *
It is a joy to celebrate [Ḥannā Diyāb's] work in Elias Muhanna's vibrant translation. * Middle East Eye *
