The stories of The One Thousand and One Nights, Scheherazade’s crafty tales spun so as to postpone death, have long tantalized imaginations in the West. While the tales have informed writers from Borges to Flaubert, they’ve also given rise to a host commercial interpretations of folkloric figures, sanitized variations that contain little of their original lust or guile. Reading the full tales, composed of fable, aphorism, poetry, and riddle, people are often surprised to meet with the running theme of how the powerless employ their cunning to undermine the powerful.
Cunning and Guile : Erica Wagner interviews Marina Warner and Hanan al-Shaykh in Guernica Magazine, Oct 1st 2012.

Source: guernicamag.com

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