Thousand and One Nights and Twentieth-Century Fiction

Richard van Leeuwen, Ph.D. (1992) University of Amsterdam, is senior lecturer in Islamic Studies at that university. He has published widely on the history of the Middle East, Arabic literature, and Islam, and is also a translator of Arabic literature. His publications include Notables and Clergy in Mount Lebanon (Brill 1994); Waqfs and Urban Structures (Brill 1999); (2004; The Arabian Nights Encyclopedia, 2 vols. (Santa Barbara 2004; with U. Marzolph); The Thousand and One Nights: space, travel and transformation (2007) and Narratives of Kingship in Eurasian Empires, 1300-1800 (Brill 2017).

• AcknowledgmentsIntroductionThe Thousand and One NightsIncorporation into World LiteratureThis StudyPart 1 Enclosures, Journeys, and Texts1 Enclosures, Letters, and Destiny: Hugo von Hofmannsthal and André GideHugo von Hofmannsthal, the Kunstmärchen, and OrientalismThe Contingency of Fate: André Gide’s Les faux-monnayeurs2 Going Home: Al-Tayyib Salih and Ibrahim al-FaqihSeason of Migration to the North and the Thousand and One NightsThe Forbidden Room: The Thousand and One Nights and Ibrahim al-Faqih’s Gardens of the Night3 Writing and Enclosures: Michel Butor and Abilio EstévezThe Portrait of an Author: Michel Butor’s Portrait de l’artiste comme jeune singeImprisoned Imagination: Abilio EstévezConclusions to Part 1Part 2 Capturing the Volatility of Time4 The Return of Time: Marcel Proust and Ahmet Hamdi TanpınarProust and the Thousand and One NightsTimes of Life and Society: Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar5 Narration and Survival: Vladimir Nabokov and Margaret AtwoodNabokov, the Thousand and One Nights, and Life After DeathNarrating Against Death: Margaret Atwood6 Desire Unbound: The Marquis de Sade and Angela CarterAngela Carter: The Feminist-Narrative Complex7 Temporal Dystopias: Botho Strauss and Haruki MurakamiWar and the Re-invention of Time: Botho Strauss’s Der junge MannHaruki Murakami and the Constraints of TimeConclusions to Part 2Part 3 The Textual Universe8 The Celebration of Textuality: James Joyce and the Argentine (post-)ModernistsThe Thousand and One Nights and the Textuality of Ulysses and Finnegans WakeTextual Worlds: Fernández, Arlt, Borges, and Piglia9 Stories Without End: Italo Calvino and Georges PerecItalo Calvino and Narration: If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller … and the Thousand and One NightsGeorges Perec: The Imperative of Form10 The Celebration of Hybridity: Abdelkébir Khatibi and Juan GoytisoloAbdelkébir Khatibi: Narration and the BodyJuan Goytisolo: Hybridity as a RefugeConclusions to Part 3Part 4 Narrating History11 The Traumas of History: William Faulkner, Toni Morrison, and André BrinkFormHistoryAbsalom, Absalom! and the Thousand and One NightsThe Haunted House: Toni Morrison’s Beloved and André Brink’s Imaginings of Sand12 The Enchantment of History: Gabriel García Márquez and Salman RushdieGabriel García Márquez and One Hundred Years of SolitudeSalman Rushdie: History Gone Awry13 Words Against Death: Roberto Calasso, David Grossman, and Elias KhouryRoberto Calasso: The Ruin of KaschDavid Grossman: Fighting the Nazi BeastViolence and the Boundaries of Narrativity: Elias Khoury’s YaloConclusions to Part 4Part 5 Identifications, Impersonations, Doubles: The Discontents of (post-)Modernity14 Aladdin’s Nightmare: Henrik Pontoppidan and Ernst JüngerThe Curse of Aladdin: Henrik PontoppidanThe City of Brass, Aladdin, and the Discontents of Modernity: Ernst Jünger15 The Sindbad Syndrome: Gyula Krúdy and John BarthGyula Krúdy: The Nostalgic NomadThe Intrepid Traveler: John Barth16 The Mock Caliph: H. G. Wells, Arthur Schnitzler, and Orhan PamukA Modern Harun al-Rashid: H. G. Wells’s The Research MagnificentArthur Schnitzler’s Der TraumnovelleThe Writer and His Double: Orhan Pamuk’s The Black Book17 The Multiple Faces of Shahrazad: Leïla Sebbar and Waçini LaredjLeïla Sebbar: ShérézadeWaçini Laredj: Les ailes de la reineConclusions to Part 5Part 6 Aftermaths: The Delusions of Politics18 The 1002nd Night: Tawfiq al-Hakim, Taha Husayn, and Naji MahfuzTawfiq al-Hakim: ShahrazadTaha Husayn: The Dreams of ShahrazadNajib Mahfuz: The Predicament of Shahriyar19 Fabrications of Power: Hani al-Rahib and Rachid BoudjedraThe Curse of Repression: al-Rahib’s Alf layla wa-laylatanA False Utopia: Rachid Boudjedra20 The Secret Lives of Sindbad: Mostafa Nissaboury and Bahram BeyzaïMostafa Nissaboury: Shahrazad’s SufferingSindbad’s Return: Bahram BeyzaïConclusions to Part 6ConclusionThe Narrative Universe of Paul AusterThe Framework: The Invention of SolitudeThe Locked RoomDoublesNarrativityBibliography

Winner of the 2020 Sheikh Zayed Book Award (category: Arabic Culture in Other Languages)"...this big, notable, stimulating work is a very helpful source of reference indeed not only for students and researchers of literature but also for scholars mastering fields like the philosophy of language, or the philosophy of history." - Stavros Nikolaidis, in: Journal of Oriental and African Studies 28 (2019)"Van Leeuwen’s Thousand and One Nights and Twentieth-Century Fiction is a smart collection of forty-six different authors of different nationalities from the 19th to the 21st century whose works have one intertextual aspect in common with the Nights. They are major contributors who have shaped the literary backdrop of the twentieth century." - Azra Ghandeharion, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad"Wir können aber doch an der genauen Betrachtung dieser vier deutschsprachigen Fallbeispiele gut erkennen, wie der Autor gearbeitet hat und wie erhellend seine Ergebnisse sind.[…] Vor allem aber scharft van Leeuwen unseren Blick dafur, wie Tausendundeine Nacht eben nicht einfach von der „westlichen“ Literatur vereinnahmt wurde, sondern allmahlich und auf sehr vielen Wegen in sie eingedrungen und so zu einem Kultbuch der Weltliteratur geworden ist.“ Claudia Ott in Orientalistische Literaturzeitung 115/4–5 (2020), Islam, https://doi.org/10.1515/olzg-2020-0119