The best books influenced by Thousand and One Nights

I admired the creativity and originality of this epic novel. Brink has yoked the harsh political reality of South Africa with the frame of the One Hundred and One Nights. 

On the eve of cataclysmic change in nineties South Africa, a young South African émigré, Kristien, who lives in London, has been summoned back to her grandmother’s deathbed. In between the tense atmosphere before impending elections in post-apartheid South Africa, the ancient Ouma tells her granddaughter the history of all of the women in their Afrikaans family, blending fable, African folktale, and actual fact. One relative even turns into a tree! Once Ouma finishes her last story, there is one more tragedy which hits very close to home.

I loved the wide sweep of this novel, which reminded me somewhat of Faulkner, that traces the literal Calvinism and fierce militarism of the first Afrikaans settlers to South Africa—and how they dealt with the changes in apartheid in the present.

This was a wonderful novel that gave me a sense of how cruel the Spanish occupation was in New Mexico in the 1600s. I loved how Anaya adapted Spanish folktales throughout the novel.

The Spanish treatment of indigenous people can be compared to any occupier, even in present times. The main character in the novel is the Governor of New Mexico and his difficulties governing Pueblo Indians and other indigenous tribes who reject the Spanish occupation and the religious beliefs of the Catholic Church. He is a sympathetic character who has just lost his wife and is lonely.

A group of Pueblo Indians are arrested for plotting a rebellion against the Spanish—the punishment is usually harsh: either death or enslavement. One of the conspirators is a fifteen-year-old girl named Serafina, who speaks Spanish well and is a gifted storyteller. She makes a wager with the governor to tell him a story every night—and if he is entertained, he will release one of the prisoners. The wager works until she is the last prisoner—and there is a final surprise! 

I loved this quirky, surreal novel, which is set in Cairo during the time of the Mamluks. Alternating between dreams and fables, the novel also takes us on a tour of Cairo. He uses the mock diary of a traveler for every section of old Cairo, but then diverges into the individual stories of characters in the city. 

Balian, a British pilgrim who has come to visit St. Catherine’s Monastery in Sinai, is really a spy sent by European powers to scout out the power of the Mamluk force, as well as the political intentions of the Sultan. Soon over his head, he finds himself meeting a variety of flamboyant characters. An Italian spy, Giancristoforo, is soon arrested and disappears into state custody. Balian has bizarre dreams at night, but even during the daytime he can’t distinguish between dream and reality.

Arabian Nightmare is a book which has hung around my bookshelf for years. I am glad I finally read it. Irwin, an Arabist and scholar of the period, gives us historical details about Cairo with dancing girls, slaves in cages, tomb robbers, performers, and magicians. The Sultan even cuts off a few heads! 

This is a fun, playful novel that completely breaks all of the boundaries—time, gender, country, and fact—not surprising from Salman Rushdie! It is a dizzying ride, going from the Ferris wheel, to bumper cars, to the house of mirrors in a theme park.

Rather than relying so much on the strict frame narrative, Rushdie experiments with the idea of characters who are overtaken by “the jinn”—a wild, irrational impulse that perverts existing norms. It is Dunyazad, Shahrazad’s sister who marries Ibn Rushd, the great philosopher who was marginalized in 1195 by the Caliph. Rushdie tells the stories of all of Dunyazad or Dunia’s descendants, as well as the eternal war between Ibn Rushd and Al-Ghazali, eight hundred years beyond the grave. A fan of the wacky and weird, Rushdie outdoes himself with the characters in this story.

After a super-storm, the line between humans and the jinns blurs and seems to echo the strangeness of our nightly political and climate news and the idiosyncratic individualism of New York City.

I enjoyed Mafouz’s marvelous retelling of the Thousand and One Nights. Although Mafouz sets the time in mediaeval era, the novel is a political fable with contemporary overtones for any authoritarian government.    

Arabian Nights and Days, tells the story of the Sultan, Shahriyar, and his entourage of rotating police chiefs, spies, and informers. Many of the same characters from A Thousand and One Nights appear in his version: Sindbad the Sailor, Aladdin, Shahrazad and her sister, Dunyazad. And characters do tell stories to one another, but Shahrazad is not as prominent.

The “jinn” or evil spirits do take over each of the most noble characters, who are tempted by money, sex, and power. Many “fall into the abyss” either in this world or the next. There are disappearances, robberies, murders, purges—and those who are in favor might have their fortunes drastically changed in the course of a day.