The Thousand and One Nights was released this week at the Cultura Bookstore in São Paulo, Brazil. This is the first time that the stories of Sahrazad are translated into Portuguese from the original Arabic.
Tales like Aladdin and Sinbad the Sailor, for example, are not included in the book, as they were incorporated into the French edition by Antoine Galland.
The text was translated by professor Mamede Mustafa Jarouche, who researched Arabic manuscripts in Europe and the Middle East for five years.
The volume is the first of five, and brings the first 170 nights. The edition has been in bookstores since the beginning of May. It will also be released in Portugal, and is thus being adapted to the Portuguese spoken in that country.
The second volume has already been translated, but does not yet have a specific date for publication in Brazil.
Apart from fidelity to the original stories, the translation by Jarouche also presents translator’s notes about linguistic aspects and comparisons between the various manuscripts and Arabic editions.
It is believed that the stories of Sahrazad arose in Iraq, in the ninth century, and from there went to Syria and then Egypt.
The text is also full of valuable annexes, with translations of passages of the book that have more than one version and that serve as elements for analysis by readers interested in the story of the constitution of the saga.
Another differential of this book is with respect to the Arab names. They appear as they should really be read: Sahrazad, for example, is written according to the international convention: Å ahrazad.
The objective, according to the publishing house, was to respect the reader avoiding “precarious solutions”. Explanations of the symbols appear in first pages of the book.
The volume will be sold in Brazil for R$ 55 (around US$ 23,00).
ANBA – Brazil-Arab News Agency – www.anba.com.br