Damascus Nights - Hardcover

It is 1959, Damascus. The most famous storyteller in Damascus, Salim, the coachman, has mysteriously lost his voice. For seven nights, his seven old friends gather to break the spell with their seven different, unique stories -- some personal, some modern, some borrowed from the past. Against the backdrop of shifting Middle Eastern politics, Schami's eight characters, lost to the Arabian nights, weave in and out of tales of wizards and princesses, of New York skyscrapers and America. With spellbinding power, Schami imparts a luscious vision of storytelling as food for thought and salve for the soul, as the glue which holds our lives together.

A timely, redesigned reissue of Rafik Schami?s award-winning novel. In the classical Arab tradition of tale-telling, here is a magical book that celebrates the power of storytelling, delightfully transformed for modern sensibilities by an award-winning author. The time is present-day Damascus, and Salim the coachman, the city?s most famous storyteller, is mysteriously struck dumb. To break the spell, seven friends gather for seven nights to present Salim with seven wondrous ?gifts??seven stories of their own design. Upon this enchanting frame of tales told in the fragrant Arabian night, the words of the past grow fainter, as ancient customs are yielding to modern turmoil. While the hairdresser, the teacher, the wife of the locksmith sip their tea and pass the water pipe, they swap stories about the magical and the mundane: about djinnis and princesses, about contemporary politics and the difficulties of bargaining in a New York department store. And as one tale leads to another? and another? all of Damascus appears before your eyes, along with a vision of storytelling?and talk?as the essence of friendship, of community, of life. A sly and graceful work, a delight to readers young and old, Damascus Nights is, according to Publishers Weekly, ?a highly atmospheric, pungent narrative.?