A cult classic that "combines the genres of travelogue, fable, dream narrative, novel and confessional into one beguiling whole" ( Publishers Weekly ).The hero and guiding force of this epic fantasy is an insomniac young man who, unable to sleep, guides the reader through the narrow streets of Cairo—a mysterious city full of deceit and trickery.He narrates a complex tangle of dreams and imaginings that describe an ...

**“[A]n electric new translation . . . Each page is adorned with illustrations and photographs from other translations and adaptations of the tales, as well as a wonderfully detailed cascade of notes that illuminate the stories and their settings. . . . The most striking feature of the Arabic tales is their shifting registers—prose, rhymed prose, poetry—and Seale captures the movement between them beautifully.” —Yasmine Al-Sayyad, New YorkerA magnificent and richly illustr...

The author of The Arabian Nightmare spins "a wryly subversive and darkly erotic fable" ( The Sunday Times).The virginal hero of the tale, Prince Orkhan, escapes from the Cage of the Imperial Harem, in which the sons of the sultan are imprisoned, and finds himself hailed by the Harem's concubines as their new Sultan. He is immediately caught up in the excesses and perversions of the Harem. But evil flourishes in a bed of boredom and, after allowing...

This is the story of a story that plays out in real life. Tom is a stock controller. Though management of the shelves kept him busy in the daytime, his nights were frightful. Again and again he dreamt of guns, conjuring tricks, car chases, burials, disinterments, Martian landscapes and Molly. Tom is new to the Story as it was known to the sinister crew who first appeared in The Runes Have Been Cast. They make their reappearance in this new novel... Molly is a hoplophiliac, Quentin is the s...

A fascinating, one-of-a-kind journey through the world of stamps and collecting by maverick historian and writer Robert Irwin Why do we collect? Is it to rescue objects from oblivion? Is it a kind of desire - or even a kind of madness? In this mosaic of fiction, philosophy, sociology, biography and autobiography, virtuoso thinker Robert Irwin takes us on a wayward journey through the art of collecting, and his own intellectual passions. Drawing on the works of writers including Susan Sonta...

It is Palm Sunday 1461 and the bloodiest battle ever fought on English soil is about to take place outside the village of Towton. It is one of a series of engagements between the houses of York and Lancaster. The world when younger was more brightly coloured and its ecstasies and tortures more fiercely endured. But, ever since the Dolorous Stroke and the Showing of the Grail in the days of King Arthur, England has lain under a curse. So many have died that Hell is now full and consequently...

Mamluks and Crusaders: Men of the Sword and Men of the Pen brings together a series of studies, based mainly on medieval Arabic sources, of Middle Eastern history and society in the late Middle Ages. Several of these studies deal with the confrontation between the Mamluks and the Crusaders. Others deal with aspects of Mamluk society and culture in Egypt and Syria from the 13th to the early 16th centuries. There are articles on such matters as Crusader feudalism and Mamluk iqta', Crusader a...

An obsessive-compulsive housewife teeters on the edge of madness in this "immensely intelligent and delightful . . . dance of a book" ( The New York Times).The Limits of Vision is Robert Irwin's irrepressibly entertaining and imaginative novel about a young housewife named Marcia and the war she wages against dirt.Set over the course of a single day as Marcia goes about her quotidian activities—having the girls over for coffee, tidying the...

This literary companion guides the reader into the labyrinth of storytelling within The Arabian Nights.The Arabian Nights has become a synonym for the fabulous and the exotic. Every child is familiar with the stories of Aladdin, Sinbad the Sailor and Ali Baba. Yet very few people, even specialists in oriental literature, have a clear idea of when the book was written or what exactly it is.Far from being a batch of stories for children,

Novel about love and madness amongst the British surrealists.

The Alhambra, the 'red fort' on its rocky hill above Granada with its fountained courts and gardens and intricate decoration has long been a byword for exotic and melancholy beauty. In a stimulating new book in the 'Wonders of the World' series Robert Irwin, Arabist and novelist, examines its engrossing and often mysterious history.Built by a bloody and threatened dynasty of Muslim Spain, the Alhambra was preserved as a monument to the triumph of Christianity. Much of what we see i...

Spanning the fifth century to the sixteenth, and ranging from Afghanistan to Spain, this unique collection provides a profound insight into the sheer vitality and depth of Classical Arabic literature. From the earliest surviving fragments of The Thousand and One Nights to the elegant beauty and profound power of the Qur'an - believed by the Islamic faith to contain the actual words of Allah - it includes translated extracts from all the major works of the period, alongside many less well-k...