Thank you to NetGalley and NYU Press for the Advanced Reader's Copy!

Available May 5th 2020

There are many ways to describe Michael Cooperson's transliteration of al-Hariri's The Impostures, but boring is not one of them. Al-Hariri of Basra, as Cooperson explains in his introduction, is a well known ancient Arabic poet who is best known for 'maqamat', a literary device in which a collection of stories is told through different forms such as poetry, prose and play-writing. With creative jurisprudence, Cooperson imitate each of these bawdy tales in the styles of iconic Western playwrights, poets and songwriters such as Virginia Woolf. Before each story, Cooperson includes a brief overview of the story and his reasoning for choosing the particular style. As a reader, I was wildly entertained. While each 'imposture' or story was only a few pages, they reminded me of a lot of older literature similar to Don Quixote, Don Juan or even the ancient Greek plays. Even if this is an academic text, it is really easy to read and follow along. Cooperson does an admirable job of making al-Hariri known and palatable to the Western audience. The question is - should he? Should the work of a respected Arabic author be transliterated or should the Western audience reach beyond their vaulted cannon and explore new cultural identities? As a reader, this is the unsettling conundrum I am left with.