Skip to content
FREE SHIPPING ON ALL DOMESTIC ORDERS $35+
FREE SHIPPING ON ALL US ORDERS $35+
Impostures - Hardcover | Diverse Reads

Impostures

Availability:
in stock, ready to be shipped
Save 13% Save 13%
$29.95
$29.95 - $29.95
$29.95
$25.99
$25.99 - $25.99
$25.99
One of the Wall Street Journal's Top 10 Books of the Year

Winner, 2020 Sheikh Zayed Book Award, Translation Category

Shortlist, 2021 National Translation Award

Finalist, 2021 PROSE Award, Literature Category


Fifty rogue’s tales translated fifty ways

An itinerant con man. A gullible eyewitness narrator. Voices spanning continents and centuries. These elements come together in Impostures, a groundbreaking new translation of a celebrated work of Arabic literature.

Impostures follows the roguish Abū Zayd al-Sarūjī in his adventures around the medieval Middle East—we encounter him impersonating a preacher, pretending to be blind, and lying to a judge. In every escapade he shows himself to be a brilliant and persuasive wordsmith, composing poetry, palindromes, and riddles on the spot. Award-winning translator Michael Cooperson transforms Arabic wordplay into English wordplay of his own, using fifty different registers of English, from the distinctive literary styles of authors such as Geoffrey Chaucer, Mark Twain, and Virginia Woolf, to global varieties of English including Cockney rhyming slang, Nigerian English, and Singaporean English.

Featuring picaresque adventures and linguistic acrobatics, Impostures brings the spirit of this masterpiece of Arabic literature into English in a dazzling display of translation.

An English-only edition.

ISBN-13: 9781479800841

Media Type: Hardcover

Publisher: New York University Press

Publication Date: 05-05-2020

Pages: 542

Product Dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.70(d)

Series: Library of Arabic Literature #65

al-Ḥarīrī (Author) Al-Ḥarīrī (d. 516/1122) was a poet, scholar, and government official from Basra, Iraq. He is celebrated for his virtuosity in producing rhymed prose narratives, the Maqāmāt. Abdelfattah Kilito (Foreword by) Abdelfattah Kilito is the author of several acclaimed studies of Arabic literature, including Arabs and the Art of Storytelling and a study of the maqāmāt genre. He is the recipient of the Great Moroccan Award, the Al Owais Award for Criticism and Literature Studies, and a Prix from the Académie Française. Michael Cooperson (Translator) Michael Cooperson is Professor of Arabic in the Department of Near Eastern Languages & Cultures at UCLA. His translations include The Life of Ibn Ḥanbal by Ibn al-Jawzī for the Library of Arabic Literature, and The Author and His Doubles by the eminent Moroccan literary critic Abdelfattah Kilito.

Table of Contents

Letter from the General Editor iii

Foreword: In Praise of Pretense ix

Acknowledgements xvi

Introduction xix

Map: The World of Abu Zayd xxviii

Note on the Translation xxix

Bibliography xlvi

Impostures 1

Imposture 1 Ever the Twain Shall Meet 13

Imposture 2 A Basran Boswell 21

Imposture 3 Sing o' Rich, Sing o' Poor 30

Imposture 4 Euphues' Damietta 38

Imposture 5 Woolf at the Door 44

Imposture 6 Plain Anglish 51

Imposture 7 Gangs of New Saybin 59

Imposture 8 Text/ile 69

Imposture 9 Stringing Her Along 74

Imposture 10 Alharet Eben Hammam His Tale 83

Imposture 11 Sinners in the Hands of an Angry Preacher 92

Imposture 12 Arabia Absurda 99

Imposture 13 The Cozening Quean of Babylon 111

Imposture 14 Scot Free 117

Imposture 15 Hobson's Choice 125

Imposture 16 Con Safos 135

Imposture 17 Back Words 148

Imposture 18 A Scandal in Mesopotamia, or, The Tell-Tale Tart 154

Imposture 19 My Man Zayd 163

Imposture 20 Down Under 170

Imposture 21 Down in Bam 177

Imposture 22 Leveraging the Flow 193

Imposture 23 Three Men in a Dub 200

Imposture 24 Arabians Learn Arabian 216

Imposture 25 De Froid Trempé 225

Imposture 26 What the Dickens? 232

Imposture 27 The Wild East 239

Imposture 28 A Void in Samarkand 248

Imposture 29 The Behn of His Exiftence 257

Imposture 30 Stop Hole Abbey 269

Imposture 31 A Hajji's Progrefs 276

Imposture 32 Jury-Rigged 283

Imposture 33 The Joy of Yarabic 306

Imposture 34 The Fraud of Slavery 315

Imposture 35 De-Canted 326

Imposture 36 What Is the Question? 330

Imposture 37 Off the Heezie 342

Imposture 38 Wocky Talkie 352

Imposture 39 The Seafarer 359

Imposture 40 Iran go Brágh 366

Imposture 41 The Cup of Counsel 379

Imposture 42 Discruciate This! 385

Imposture 43 Containing Great Variety of Matter 396

Imposture 44 Near East Enders 407

Imposture 45 Cat among the Pidgins 419

Imposture 46 Araby 429

Imposture 47 The Confidence Men 440

Imposture 48 Alcoholics Eponymous 449

Imposture 49 The Parliament of Rogues 458

Imposture 50 See Saw Margery Daw 466

The Author's Retraction 483

About NYU Abu Dhabi Institute 486

Titles Published by the Library of Arabic Literature 487

About the Cover Artist 491

About the Translator 492