![Impostures](http://img.images-bn.com/static/redesign/srcs/images/grey-box.png?v11.9.4)
Impostures
542![Impostures](http://img.images-bn.com/static/redesign/srcs/images/grey-box.png?v11.9.4)
Impostures
542Hardcover
-
PICK UP IN STORECheck Availability at Nearby Stores
Available within 2 business hours
Related collections and offers
Overview
Winner, 2020 Sheikh Zayed Book Award, Translation Category
Shortlist, 2021 National Translation Award
Finalist, 2021 PROSE Award, Literature Category
Fifty rogue’s tales translated fifty ways
An itinerant con man. A gullible eyewitness narrator. Voices spanning continents and centuries. These elements come together in Impostures, a groundbreaking new translation of a celebrated work of Arabic literature.
Impostures follows the roguish Abū Zayd al-Sarūjī in his adventures around the medieval Middle East—we encounter him impersonating a preacher, pretending to be blind, and lying to a judge. In every escapade he shows himself to be a brilliant and persuasive wordsmith, composing poetry, palindromes, and riddles on the spot. Award-winning translator Michael Cooperson transforms Arabic wordplay into English wordplay of his own, using fifty different registers of English, from the distinctive literary styles of authors such as Geoffrey Chaucer, Mark Twain, and Virginia Woolf, to global varieties of English including Cockney rhyming slang, Nigerian English, and Singaporean English.
Featuring picaresque adventures and linguistic acrobatics, Impostures brings the spirit of this masterpiece of Arabic literature into English in a dazzling display of translation.
An English-only edition.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9781479800841 |
---|---|
Publisher: | New York University Press |
Publication date: | 05/05/2020 |
Series: | Library of Arabic Literature , #65 |
Pages: | 542 |
Sales rank: | 646,031 |
Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.70(d) |
About the Author
Al-Ḥarīrī (d. 516/1122) was a poet, scholar, and government official from Basra, Iraq. He is celebrated for his virtuosity in producing rhymed prose narratives, the Maqāmāt.
Abdelfattah Kilito (Foreword by)
Abdelfattah Kilito is the author of several acclaimed studies of Arabic literature, including Arabs and the Art of Storytelling and a study of the maqāmāt genre. He is the recipient of the Great Moroccan Award, the Al Owais Award for Criticism and Literature Studies, and a Prix from the Académie Française.
Michael Cooperson (Translator)
Michael Cooperson is Professor of Arabic in the Department of Near Eastern Languages & Cultures at UCLA. His translations include The Life of Ibn Ḥanbal by Ibn al-Jawzī for the Library of Arabic Literature, and The Author and His Doubles by the eminent Moroccan literary critic Abdelfattah Kilito.
Table of Contents
Letter from the General Editor iii
Foreword: In Praise of Pretense ix
Acknowledgements xvi
Introduction xix
Map: The World of Abu Zayd xxviii
Note on the Translation xxix
Bibliography xlvi
Impostures 1
Imposture 1 Ever the Twain Shall Meet 13
Imposture 2 A Basran Boswell 21
Imposture 3 Sing o' Rich, Sing o' Poor 30
Imposture 4 Euphues' Damietta 38
Imposture 5 Woolf at the Door 44
Imposture 6 Plain Anglish 51
Imposture 7 Gangs of New Saybin 59
Imposture 8 Text/ile 69
Imposture 9 Stringing Her Along 74
Imposture 10 Alharet Eben Hammam His Tale 83
Imposture 11 Sinners in the Hands of an Angry Preacher 92
Imposture 12 Arabia Absurda 99
Imposture 13 The Cozening Quean of Babylon 111
Imposture 14 Scot Free 117
Imposture 15 Hobson's Choice 125
Imposture 16 Con Safos 135
Imposture 17 Back Words 148
Imposture 18 A Scandal in Mesopotamia, or, The Tell-Tale Tart 154
Imposture 19 My Man Zayd 163
Imposture 20 Down Under 170
Imposture 21 Down in Bam 177
Imposture 22 Leveraging the Flow 193
Imposture 23 Three Men in a Dub 200
Imposture 24 Arabians Learn Arabian 216
Imposture 25 De Froid Trempé 225
Imposture 26 What the Dickens? 232
Imposture 27 The Wild East 239
Imposture 28 A Void in Samarkand 248
Imposture 29 The Behn of His Exiftence 257
Imposture 30 Stop Hole Abbey 269
Imposture 31 A Hajji's Progrefs 276
Imposture 32 Jury-Rigged 283
Imposture 33 The Joy of Yarabic 306
Imposture 34 The Fraud of Slavery 315
Imposture 35 De-Canted 326
Imposture 36 What Is the Question? 330
Imposture 37 Off the Heezie 342
Imposture 38 Wocky Talkie 352
Imposture 39 The Seafarer 359
Imposture 40 Iran go Brágh 366
Imposture 41 The Cup of Counsel 379
Imposture 42 Discruciate This! 385
Imposture 43 Containing Great Variety of Matter 396
Imposture 44 Near East Enders 407
Imposture 45 Cat among the Pidgins 419
Imposture 46 Araby 429
Imposture 47 The Confidence Men 440
Imposture 48 Alcoholics Eponymous 449
Imposture 49 The Parliament of Rogues 458
Imposture 50 See Saw Margery Daw 466
The Author's Retraction 483
About NYU Abu Dhabi Institute 486
Titles Published by the Library of Arabic Literature 487
About the Cover Artist 491
About the Translator 492