Sheherazade, the king's beautiful wife, is due to be executed at dawn - unless she can convince the king to change his mind.
That night she tells him a wonderful story which, as dawn comes, she leaves unfinished.
"Will you let me live to finish the tale?" she asks.
"Of course", replies the king, "I must know what happens next".
Night after night, Sheherazade tells story after story, always leaving the last one incomplete.
And so for one thousand and one nights, she remains alive...
This is how the enchanting collection of stories known as "One Thousand and One Nights" has been passed down to us.
It includes the well-known stories "Sheherazade", "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves", "The Ox and the Ass" and "The Horse of Ebony" and How the story of Sheherazade ended.
In a beautiful edition, the stories are brought to life by the enchanting, elegant illustrations of Russian painter Olga Dugina.
From her early childhood, Olga Dugina was very interested in drawing and painting.
By getting in contact to a book-illustrator during the primary school, her artistic learning became even stronger.
Afterwards she attended the Moscow Art School where she got to know the illustrator Andrej Dugin.
On June 30, 1984 she married Andrej Dugin.
Education:
1978 - 1981 Krasnopresnenskaya Art School in Moscow.
1984 - 1988 Moscow Art College.
One Thousand and One Nights (Arabic: أَلْفُ لَيْلَةٍ وَلَيْلَةٌ, Alf Laylah wa-Laylah) is a collection of Middle Eastern folktales compiled in the Arabic language during the Islamic Golden Age.
It is often known in English as the Arabian Nights, from the first English-language edition (1706-1721), which rendered the title as The Arabian Nights' Entertainment.
The work was collected over many centuries by various authors, translators, and scholars across West Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, and North Africa.
Some tales trace their roots back to ancient and medieval Arabic, Sanskrit, Persian, and Mesopotamian literature.
Most tales, however, were originally folk stories from the Abbasid and Mamluk eras, while others, especially the frame story, are probably drawn from the Pahlavi Persian work Hezār Afsān (Persian: هزار افسان, lit. 'A Thousand Tales'), which in turn may be translations of older Indian texts.
Common to all the editions of the Nights is the framing device of the story of the ruler Shahryar being narrated the tales by his wife Scheherazade, with one tale told over each night of storytelling.
The stories proceed from this original tale; some are framed within other tales, while some are self-contained.
Some editions contain only a few hundred nights of storytelling, while others include 1001 or more.
The bulk of the text is in prose, although verse is occasionally used for songs and riddles and to express heightened emotion.
Most of the poems are single couplets or quatrains, although some are longer.
Some of the stories commonly associated with the Arabian Nights -particularly "Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp" and "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" - were not part of the collection in the original Arabic versions, but were instead added to the collection by French translator Antoine Galland after he heard them from Syrian writer Hanna Diyab during the latter's visit to Paris.
Other stories, such as "The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor", had an independent existence before being added to the collection.
Olga Dugina | Illustration for "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves"
Sheherazade, la bellissima moglie del re, sarà giustiziata all'alba, a meno che non riesca a convincere il re a cambiare idea.
Quella notte gli racconta una storia meravigliosa che, all'alba, lascia incompiuta.
"Mi lascerai vivere per finire il racconto?" chiede.
"Naturalmente", risponde il re, "devo sapere cosa succederà dopo".
Notte dopo notte, Sheherazade racconta una storia dopo l'altra, lasciando sempre l'ultima incompleta.
E così per mille e una notte rimane viva...
È così che ci è stata tramandata l'incantevole raccolta di racconti conosciuta come "Le Mille e una Notte".
Comprende le famose storie "Sheherazade", "Ali Baba e i quaranta ladri", "Il bue e l'asino" ed "Il cavallo d'ebano" e Come finì la storia di Sheherazade.
In una bellissima edizione, le storie prendono vita dalle incantevoli ed eleganti illustrazioni dell'artista Russa, Olga Dugina.
Fin dalla prima infanzia, Olga Dugina era molto interessata al disegno ed alla pittura.
Entrando in contatto con un illustratore di libri durante la scuola elementare, il suo apprendimento artistico divenne ancora più forte.
In seguito frequentò la Moscow Art School dove conobbe l'illustratore Andrej Dugin.
Il 30 giugno 1984 sposò Andrej Dugin.
Le mille e una notte (in arabo ألف ليلة وليلة?, ʾAlf layla wa layla; in persiano هزار و یک شب, Hezār-o yek šab) è una celebre raccolta di racconti orientali (di origine egiziana, mesopotamica, indiana e persiana), realizzata nel X secolo, di varia ambientazione storico-geografica, composta da differenti autori.
Il numero 1000 non va preso alla lettera.
Al contrario, "mille" significa in arabo "innumerevoli" e quindi 1000 significa un numero infinito.
Successivi compilatori e traduttori presero questo numero alla lettera e, dividendo e aggiungendo fiabe, arrivarono ad una raccolta che ne conteneva appunto mille
![](https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PEA6zlrSZtg/X_930Y1W_bI/AAAAAAAG7g0/cAlR16TZ2oIRhDZu0ZD66-m6FdF4fICWACPcBGAsYHg/s0/Facebook.png" "Condividi su Facebook")
