The Man Who Wrote Aladdin

The origins of ‘Aladdin’ continue to fascinate scholars and readers of the tales. The story is believed to have first been written in French, by Antoine Galland, having been told to him in Paris in 1709 by Hanna Diyab - the author of this travel memoir. Written some five decades after this encounter, ‘The Life and Times of Hanna Diyab’ is part autobiography and part storytelling, a fascinating record of experiences,  cultural observations, international relations, medicine, and hearsay. It traces a journey across land and sea from the author’s home in Aleppo - through early eighteenth-century Lebanon, Jabal Druze, Cyprus, Egypt, Libya, Tunis, Livorno, Genoa and Marseille – to Paris in the time of Louis XIV; and the author’s return to Aleppo across the ‘lands of the East’, now Turkey. The Foreword explains how this important translation into English came about and the Introduction provides background to some of the features of the memoir, including the Maronite Christian community of the period, the consular system of the Republics of Venice and Genoa, the role of Ottoman ambassadors, and of the French merchant, naturalist and traveller, Paul Lucas. Notes at the end of the book also help the non-specialist reader, and there are two bibliographies.