Relief After Hardship

Ulrich Marzolph is a retired professor of Islamic studies at the Georg-August-University in Göttingen, Germany. His field of expertise is the narrative culture of the Muslim world. He is the author of 101 Middle Eastern Tales and Their Impact on Western Oral Tradition and the editor of The Arabian Nights Reader and The Arabian Nights in Transnational Perspective (all Wayne State University Press).

A fascinating glimpse into the trilingual literary field(s) of the Islamicate world centred in Istanbul in the seventeenth century . . . in many ways a liberating study.- Wen-Chin Ouyang, The Times Literary Supplement"This book, with its precious and detailed summaries of the Ferec's twisty tales, its indices helping readers to locate motifs and parallels in the summaries, and several lists and tables comparing the contents of the most relevant tale collections, will serve as an essential and generous reference for further scholarship on this and many related narrative traditions. - Zina Maleh, Journal of the American Oriental SocietyRelief after Hardship represents just the beginning of Marzolph's work on this important collection. - Andrew Teverson, Gramarye: The Chichester Centre for Fairy Tales, Fantasy, and Speculative Fiction"Ulrich Marzolph offers an erudite study of the relationship between the Persian, Ottoman Turkish, and French versions of the classic story collection known as 1001 Days in the West. His research clearly demonstrates that the study of not easily accessible Middle Eastern folktales will continue to enrich and reformulate our knowledge about the European tale of magic. - Helga Anetshofer (lecturer in Ottoman and Turkish, University of Chicago)"The book is competently constructed, well bound, and presents a smart appearance for a reasonable price. Relief after Hardship will make a fine addition to the library of anyone with an interest in Near Eastern literature and narrative and is an essential purchase for those whose research engages specifically with the three textual traditions it explores. In the book's preface, the author details how the project itself found its way to him from the late Hungarian scholar Györgi Hazai who took up the mantle from his late colleague, Austrian scholar Andreas Tietze. I can think of no more fitting eulogy to two distinguished scholars; there is no question that both men would be honored by the admirable manner in which Marzolph has treated the material. - Dorian Juric, Western Folklore"Marzolph's new book very convincingly shows the importance of the Ferec ba'd es-sidde collection in its own right and offers at the same time a glimpse into some of the debates pertaining to the literature of Middle Eastern Muslim folktales in general. Relief after Hardship is indeed an entertaining, though demanding, read. The tales' summaries and comments constitute a lasting encyclopedia, which is a most welcome gift to the community of scholars, as well as the complete bibliography and indexes. This book, with a beautiful figurative illustration on the cover, is certainly destined to give an international audience a better understanding of the rich and varied folktale literature of the Muslim world. - Pierre-Emmanuel Moog, Marvels & Tales