In her call to ‘Listen’ both as command and invitation, Scheherazade engages the King and us, listeners of different kinds, as active participants in the story-telling process, as she artfully weaves together captivating narrative cycles that generate new story upon story to keep the King on tenterhooks and crucially, keep her, and her fellow female compatriots, alive. ‘ turned to the king and said, ‘May I tell a story?’Īnd she said, ‘Listen” (Seale, Arabian Nights, 2021)
In her new translation of the Alf Layla wa Layla – the One Thousand and One Nights – Yasmine Seale captures the intimacy of the moment in which the story-telling contract is issued between Scheherazade and King Shahryar, the powerful tyrant engaged in acts of murder against the women of his lands.
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