Arabian Nights in English Literary Theory (1704-1910)

In its first edition, this book was a new opening in the study of the Arabian Nights as an index of literary taste, a case study for the engagements of poets and writers, along with the common reading public, with an art that took Europe by surprise, and forced new patterns of response and writing. Borges thought of its advent as a dynamic that helped generate the romantic mode and sensibility. It certainly disturbed old habits of thought and made significant cultural inroads throughout European cultures. Almost no one in 18th-19th century literatures remained oblivious to that sweeping phenomenal appearance. The book analyzes and studies modes and patterns of reading, response, engagement, commentary, translations, claims to authentication, abridgements, and illustrations. It focuses on debates and controversies around the Arabian Nights, and shows how these happened to be at the center of a growing colonial culture. This book can never lose its significance for students, scholars, and general readership, not only in the field of comparative and cultural studies, English and French departments, but also in postcolonial studies and the basics of narrative and narratology.

Muhsin J. al-Musawi is professor of classical and modern Arabic literature, comparative and cultural studies at Columbia University. He is the author of over thirty books (including 6 novels) and over sixty scholarly articles. His books include: The Islamic Context of the Thousand and One Nights (2009); The Postcolonial Arabic Novel: Debating Ambivalence (2003); Arabic Poetry: Trajectories of Modernity and Tradition (2006); Reading Iraq: Culture and Power in Conflict (2006); Islam on the Street: Religion in Arabic Literature (2009), selected as a Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2010; The Medieval Islamic Republic of Letters: Arabic Knowledge Construction (2015); Arabic Disclosures: The Postcolonial Autobiographical Atlas (July 2022); The Arabian Nights in Contemporary World Cultures (Aug. 2021).

His edited volumes include Arabic Literary Thresholds: Sites of Rhetorical Turn in Contemporary Scholarship (2009) and Arabic Literature for the Classroom (2017). He is the editor of the Journal of Arabic Literature, the foremost academic journal in the field of Arabic literature. He has also served as academic consultant for numerous academic institutions in the United States and abroad.

Professor al-Musawi is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the highly prestigious 2002 Owais Award in Literary Criticism, the 2018 Kuwait Prize in Arabic Language and Literature, and King Faisal Prize in Arabic Literature in English, 2022.