Gay Tales and Verses from the Arabian Nights

by Anonymous, E. Powys Mathers (Translated from the French ), Henry M. Christman (Introduction)

This book is an anthology exclusively of gay tales and verses excerpted from The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night rendered into English from the French translation of Dr. J.C. Mardrus, translated by Powys Mathers and with an Introduction by Dr. Henry M. Christman.

There are all kinds of gay adventures here, with good guys and bad guys and good endings and bad endings, just as in real life. Imaginative and fanciful as they are, some stories may be closer to real life than we might immediately comprehend on first reading. There are lessons about life to be learned here.

Mathers asserts: "Islamic indecency is excellent of its kind." The reader is sure to agree.

Genres: Gay

100 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1989

About the author

Books can be attributed to "Anonymous" for several reasons:

* They are officially published under that name
* They are traditional stories not attributed to a specific author
* They are religious texts not generally attributed to a specific author

Books whose authorship is merely uncertain should be attributed to Unknown.

See also: Anonymous

Reviews

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Indecency - It isn't just for infidels anymore!

Reading this book is something like the gay equivalent of reading the highlighted bits from a banned, dog-eared copy of Peyton Place. This volume concentrates on the excerpted "wicked bits" from the Arabian Nights. Starting with a story segment called "Tale of Abu Shamat" we're given the homoerotic section of one of the 1001 tales. There is no scholarly narrative explaining just where this fits into the overall story line, just the excerpted bit and yet, its still delicious to know that such tales existed even so long ago as when this was first told around a fire and then written down.

Other bits seem to be more complete stories, though there does appear to be a lot of wine drinking for what are essentially Islamic stories. Many tales seem to deal with lusting after young and innocent beauties and the poems of the bath house are particularly good. There is even a pretty complete story about a prophecy that may be fulfilled by accident when a shipwrecked traveler meets a young man whose been hidden on an island in order to protect him. Finally, the last sections of the book are poems to young beauty. Imagery is all and they're really quite sweet if not action packed. As just one example... “Of a slim-waisted deer-swift boy... My tongue remembers and is young.”

This is an interesting book if taken for what it is, a peek inside a culture that many westerners know little about. If you're curious about such things, then this would be a good place to start your reading.

[Roger · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars. I had hoped for some more uplifting stories or more erotic ones. Several were homophobic. And some were hard to understand due to the unfamiliar culture. This book was originally published in 1972, at a time maybe when any representation was rare and welcome.