Three brightly illustrated storybooks depicting kharareef — age-old Emirati fairy tales — will be presented at the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair on Wednesday and next week.
The Abu Dhabi-based writer Iwona Taida Drózd, from Poland, says when she heard these stories, recounted by her Emirati friends, she immediately saw similarities to the fairy tales from her own childhood, and thus was born Tales of the United Arab Emirates: a series of three books containing themes and characters not unlike those in western culture.
The Turkish-Dutch artist Ufuk Kobas Smink, who conducts art classes and workshops for women’s and children’s organisations in the capital, has provided the illustrations.
“Many stories we know in western culture came from the East,” says Drózd, 56. “People came from India, Persia, and through the Gulf countries with their caravans, and went on to the Mediterranean and Europe. So, often, the roots of these stories go back to other places.”
The first book, How the Fox Got a Bad Reputation, is about a sly fox who pretends to be weak in order to cheat his way to worldly riches, while the second book, titled Ugly Saber, features a hunchback who uses his frightening appearance to teach naughty children a lesson they’ll never forget. Saber (Arabic for patient) bears a strong resemblance to Victor Hugo’s Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831). The story was told to Drózd by Emirati Abdulaziz Abdulrahman Al Musallam, a member of the Sharjah Directorate of Heritage, who remembered it from his childhood.
Original article by Jessica Hill
Continue reading at The National:
Abu Dhabi-based author Iwona Taida Drózd reinterprets three Emirati fairy tales to English
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