Damascus Nights

Rafik Schami

• Publisher: Interlink Books
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781566568319
• eBook ISBN: 9781623710620
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

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."

Table of contents

• Coverpage
• Praise
• Title
• Copyright
• Book Title
• Content
• 1 How Salim the coachman arrived at his stories without ever leaving his seat
• 2 Why a strange disquiet interrupted the hitherto quiet comings and goings of seven gentlemen
• 3 How the old coachman lost his voice and made his friends the talk of the town
• 4 Why one proposal made Salim happy but caused his friends to quarrel
• 5 Why one man allowed his voice to be chained, and how he later set it free
• 6 How Salim without saying a word talked a merchant into lowering his price
• 7 How one man's hunger for a dream kept everyone else well fed
• 8 How one person's true story was not believed, whereas his most blatant lie was
• 9 How a certain man mastered all the lies in the world but missed the one truth right in front of his nose
• 10 How one man bit his own eye and caused another man to change his view
• 11 How one man had to hear after death what he had been deaf to while alive
• 12 Why Salim was sad after giving birth to a beautiful story
• 13 How one story's magic broke two spells and why seven old men broke into song
• 14 Why because of Salim I tumbled to the ground and a swallow sailed into the skies