Tales of the Marvellous and News of the Strange
- Author Anonymous
- Narrator Taheen Modak
- Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
- Publish Date 1 April 2021
- Run Time 17 hours and 50 minutes
- Format Audio
- Genre Short stories, Traditional stories, myths and fairy tales.
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Listen to a sample
What to expect
Brought to you by Penguin.
This Penguin Classic is performed by Taheen Modak, best known for The Bay and Two Weeks to Live. This definitive recording includes an introduction by Malcom Lyons.
On the shrouded corpse hung a tablet of green topaz with the inscription: 'I am Shaddad the Great. I conquered a thousand cities; a thousand white elephants were collected for me; I lived for a thousand years and my kingdom covered both east and west, but when death came to me nothing of all that I had gathered was of any avail. You who see me take heed: for Time is not to be trusted.'
Dating from at least a millennium ago, these are the earliest known Arabic short stories, surviving in a single, ragged manuscript in a library in Istanbul. Some found their way into The Arabian Nights but most have never been read in English before. Tales of the Marvellous and News of the Strange has monsters, lost princes, jewels beyond price, a princess turned into a gazelle, sword-wielding statues and shocking reversals of fortune.
© Robert Irwin 2014 (P) Penguin Audio 2021
Critics Review
Superb, a revelation – a real classic of popular literature . . . endlessly diverting and inventive, (giving) a unique insight into a now-lost elegant, courtly and tolerant Arab world
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