My Thousand & One Nights
Subtitle: A Novel of Mecca (Middle East Literature in Translation)
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
Published: October 30, 2007
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 272
ISBN-13: 9780815608660
Subjects: Historical fiction; Fiction; Fiction - Romance; Romance: Historical; Romance - Historical
Description: "The distinguished Middle Eastern author Raja Alem grew up in Mecca at a time when the holy city was on the cusp of transformation from medieval to modern. In this vanished Mecca, vividly brought to life again in My Thousand & One Nights, women hold center stage - especially Jummo, the wildly passionate daughter of Mohammed al-Baikwaly, the prominent sheik of the Zamzam Water Carriers." "This faraway time and setting become compellingly real through the intimate drama of Jummo's life, the tragic arc of her affair with her childhood sweetheart, and her lifelong love for the mysterious Sidi Wadhana, a more-than-human emissary from the netherworld. Jummo's world, veiled and invisible to outsiders until this telling of her story, has the feel of the true center of an Arabia that comes to us in many exotic and threatening guises. Jummo's Mecca is a different world, with different narrative strategies, but her dramatic problems are universal: how lethal is love, how dangerous is woman? And how sensual is the yearning for immortality?"--Jacket.