A Bed for the King's Daughter

A groundbreaking collection of experimental short fiction by award-winning Syrian author and Booker International Prize for Arabic Fiction nominee Shahla Ujayli, A Bed for the Kings Daughter uses surrealism and irony to examine such themes as womens agency, the decline of collective life and imagination under modernity, and the effects of social and political corruption on daily life. In The Memoir of Cinderellas Shoes, Cinderella uses her famous glass slipper as a weapon in order to take justice into her own hands. In Tell Me About Surrealism, an art history professors writing assignment reveals the slipperiness of storytelling, and in Merry Christmas, the realities of apartheid interfere with one familys celebration. Through twenty-two short stories, Ujayli animateswith brevity and inventivenessthemes relevant to both the particularities of life in the Arab world and life outside it.