Tricksters. Arab Folktales

For this week of Nasruddin stories, I want to make sure to emphasize some of the storytelling traditions affiliated with Nasruddin in different cultures, and this beautiful book is a great place to start: Arab Folktales by Inea Bushnaq.

The stories in this book come from all over the Arab world, and they are organized thematically, including a whole section of "Famous Fools and Rascals" which features Djuha stories from Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Morocco, and Iraq; Djeha stories from Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya; Ben Sikran stories from Algeria; Abu Nawas stories from Tunisia, Syria, and Iraq; and Bahlul stories from Iraq, Palestine, and Morocco.

The Nasruddin storytelling tradition coalesced with these other traditions over the past thousand years, so you will find some familiar stories from the Nasruddin corpus here, plus some new stories too, I'm sure! 

And of course there are hundreds more wonderful stories in this big book (almost 400 pages) to enjoy.

Arab Folktales

by Inea Bushnaq