For the inevitable.’Ĭontent guidance: This production contains strong and sexual language, and themes of oppression and slavery. ‘Look at her – plucked and waxed and creamed and painted. This fearless new play, a co-production with Tamasha, is directed by their Artistic Director, Pooja Ghai ( Lotus Beauty, Hampstead, Lions and Tigers, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse) and written by Globe Resident Writer Hannah Khalil ( The Fir Tree, Henry VIII, Globe), with contributions from Hanan al-Shaykh, Suhayla El-Bushra and Sara Shaarawi. They’ve got other ideas for their future, and it starts with a story… These women are unapologetic, and united in their fight to keep themselves – and the whole of womankind – alive. Years later, only five brides-in-waiting remain.

From the Arabic terms hekaye meaning story and haki meaning to talk.Ī tyrant revenges his wife’s infidelity by wedding, bedding and beheading a new bride every day. Please cut us some slack, as we are trying! There are only a handful of novels by Arab writers available in English, which makes it even harder for readers to get a good sense of the culture these novels come from.Share in the unifying power of storytelling as ancient tales are reclaimed, rewritten and reimagined for Hakawatis: Women of the Arabian Nights in our candlelit Sam Wanamaker Playhouse.

To sum up, most of us are going into unknown territory with this book. It's also a huge work, and that's another drawback for translators and publishers. The Arabian Nights is very bawdy (kind of like Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and Boccaccio's Decameron), and *that* is one of the main reasons we don't have good English versions. In English, they're presented as childrens' stories, which is part of the problem. Like most folks from outside the Arabic-speaking world, i know retellings of the stories about Ali Baba, Aladdin and a few others. I would love to read the kind of translation i just mentioned, but I'm not sure one will be available any time soon. Good English translations - well, there aren't really any, especially something accessible to the average, non-academic reader. I'm Anglo, but have been around Arab neighbors and read *just* enough about Arab history and culture to be able to pick up on a lot of references, but I'm sure a whole lot more things in this book went right past me.įwiw, i have never read The Arabian Nights. Lebanese) culture as well as classic literature from the Arabic-speaking world. I do think lack of familiarity with The Arabian Nights = problems for most American readers, especially if this book is their intro to Arab (specifically,

The hakawati