Marcel Kurpershoek is a senior research fellow at New York University Abu Dhabi. A specialist in the oral traditions and poetry of Arabia, he is the author of the five-volume Oral Poetry and Narratives from Central Arabia (Brill), as well as several books on Middle Eastern history and culture. He served as Netherlands ambassador to Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkey, and Poland, and as special envoy to Syria until 2015.

'...extremely informative and very well produced, and [...] will be of great interest and usefulness both to the student of Arabian oral literature and to the dialectologist.'Bruce Ingham, Bulletin of the SOAS, 1995.'...of great value not only because it deals with oral tradition from a region which is not easily accessible, even to orientalists, but also because for the very first time it presents the complete diwan of the oral poetry of ad-Dindan in a competent way.'Barbara Ostafin, Folia Orientalia, 1994.