Tricksters. African, Asian, Hispanic Plays.

Since I'll be out of town for the next two weeks, I wanted to finish up this week of Nasruddin resources with something that opens back up into the big world of trickster tales: three books of folktale scripts by Barbara Winther. There is a Nasruddin play, Listen to the Hodja, in this book: Plays from Folktales of Africa and Asia.

In addition to the Nasruddin play, you can find some other great trickster plays in this collection: Anansi the African Spider, Ijapa the Tortoise, Abu Nawas, and Little Mouse-Deer. There are other plays in the book too, of course, but you know I'm just on the lookout for tricksters these days!

The African plays in this book actually come from another book by Winther devoted to African folktales with more trickster stories: Plays from African Tales. So, if you are looking for the African rabbit, you will find him here: Trickster Hare's Feast. The rabbit is also the trickster hero of this play: The Great Tug of War. There's even a play about the San trickster: Mantis the Dreamer.

And.... there's more! Winther also wrote a book of Hispanic plays, and you will find trickster plays here too: Plays from Hispanic Tales. There are two rabbit plays: The Great Hurricane and Brother Rabbit Sells Corn. There is even a play about the trickster Pedro de Urdemalas.

Barbara Winther [1926-2018] began writing folktale plays when she was working as a teacher in California and could not find any folktale scripts to perform with her students. These are "royalty-free" scripts which means they can be performed without paying royalties. The books are still copyrighted, but you can borrow them at the Internet Archive, thanks to the power of Controlled Digital Lending!

So, I'll be back with more trickster books when I get back home; meanwhile, you can browse the past trickster resource blog posts. There are over a 100 posts so far... and lots more to come!

Plays from Folktales of Africa and Asia

by Barbara Winther

Plays from African Tales

by Barbara Winther

Plays from Hispanic Tales

by Barbara Winther

Tricksters. Uncommon Sense of the Immortal Mullah Nasruddin

Next up in this week of Nasruddin stories is one of my favorite collections of Nasruddin stories: The Uncommon Sense of the Immortal Mullah Nasruddin : Stories, Jests, and Donkey Tales of the Beloved Persian Folk Hero by Ron Suresha.

I was so excited when I saw this book had been digitized by the Archive; it came online here just a few months ago! And look: it's a signed copy! (It's always fun to see traces from the outside world inscribed in Internet Archive books.)

A distinctive feature of Suresha's book is that he organizes the stories along a kind of chronology for Nasruddin's lifetime. As you've seen from previous posts, Nasruddin takes on different identities and plays different roles in different stories, and by arranging the stories "biographically" this way, Suresha provides a really nice vantage point from which to see those different identities side by side.

Meanwhile, don't forget that you can also use the search features at the Archive to search the contents of the book, so if you want to find all the donkey stories, regardless of Nasruddin's personal timeline, just do a search for donkey: so many results!

I'll be back with one more Nasruddin book to finish up this week before I leave for 2 weeks' vacation... meanwhile, enjoy the life of Nasruddin told in the stories here:

The Uncommon Sense of
the Immortal Mullah Nasruddin
by Ron Suresha

Tricksters. Fables from the Islamic World

Carrying on with this week of Nasruddin stories, here is a beautiful collection from Barefoot Books by Shahrukh Husain: The Wise Fool: Fables from the Islamic World.

As she explains in the introduction, Husain heard Nasruddin stories everywhere in Pakistan and India growing up, and she has created a lovely tribute to that tradition with this book.

The gorgeous artwork is by Micha Archer. Here is Nasruddin and his dear donkey:

And just look at this two-page spread: wow!

You can find lots more Barefoot Books at the Internet Archive; they are always such a pleasure to read. Enjoy!

The Wise Fool: Fables from the Islamic World

by Shahrukh Husain

Tricksters. Goha the Wise Fool

Carrying on with Goha today (see the Arab Folktales from yesterday), I have a lovely little book of Goha stories to share: Goha the Wise Fool by Denys Johnson-Davies.

You will find 15 stories from the Arabic tradition here, and Denys Johnson-Davies was himself one of the most famous translators of Arabic literature into English. You can read more about his life and career at Wikipedia. I was delighted to see that Goha was among his interests!

But what makes this book really amazing is that artwork... which comes in the form of needlework! The needlework artists are the "Fattouh Sons," Hag Hamdy and Hany, who have their shop in the Street of the Testmakers in Cairo's old Islamic quarter. You can read more about them in the book, which includes this photo:

So, just look at how lovely the art is! On the title page you can see the famous story of father-son-and-donkey, where Goha cannot decide just who should ride and who should walk.

Here is the illustration for one of my favorites about Goha, his wife, and the cat. See the cat? On the scales? Such a funny story!

I was delighted to find this book at the Internet Archive and I immediately ordered a copy to add to my Nasruddin book collection. Not because of the stories, but because of this beautiful folk art!

Goha the Wise Fool

by Denys Johnson-Davies

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

Tricksters. Hoja Tales from Turkey

Starting up a new week of posts (before I take a Spring Break... in the Bay area!), I thought I would return to Nasruddin, who, like last week's Cree trickster, goes by different names in different traditions. He is famous through Turkey, throughout the Arab world (and thus also in Sicily), and in India. Today's book is by a writer from India now based in Canada, Rina Singh, who refers to Nasrudin by his honorific title, the Hoja: Nearly Nonsense: Hoja Tales from Turkey.

You will find ten stories here, and they are told in an elaborate, detailed style, unlike the Nasruddin stories that are told more as quick jokes. As Singh explains in the introduction, the Hoja may seem foolish or comical, "but there is a hidden wisdom to each that Sufis (Muslim mystics) use to illustrate their teachings. Although the stories may have changed with time, Hoja has remained constant the endearing fool, an impossible trickster, and a beloved character of Turkish folktales."

The illustrations are by Farida Zaman; here's the illustration for one of my favorite Nasruddin stories, The Sermon:

So, enjoy, and I'll be back with more Nasruddin stories every day this week. :-)

Nearly Nonsense: Hoja Tales from Turkey

by Rina Singh