Epic Reads

The retelling of Asia’s iconic folk tales

- Shreya Acharya

The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1,001 Nights (Volume 1)

Every night for three years the vengeful King Shahriyar sleeps with a different virgin, executing her the next morning. To end this brutal pattern and to save her own life, the vizier’s daughter, Shahrazad, begins to tell the king stories of adventure, love, riches and wonder – tales of mystical lands peopled with princes and hunchbacks, the Angel of Death and magical spirits, tales of the voyages of Sindbad, of Ali Baba outwitting a band of 40 thieves and of genies trapped in rings and in lamps. The sequence of stories will last 1,001 nights.

BY: ANONYMOUS TRANSLATED BY MALCOLM LYONS AND URSULA LYONS INTRODUCTION BY ROBERT IRWIN

Chinese Fairy Tales

Abundant with imperiled princesses, sorcerers both kind and evil, anthropomorphic animals, otherworldly ghosts, and more engaging characters, this captivating collection of yarns from ancient China offers 73 spellbinding stories. Glowing with timeless myths and legends, the tales have been carefully arranged as “Nursery Fairy Tales”, “Legends of the Gods”, “Tales of Saints and Magicians”, “Nature and Animal Tales”, “Ghost Stories”, “Historic Legends”, and “Literary Fairy Tales”.