The Tale of Princess Fatima, Warrior Woman: The Arabic Epic of Dhat al-Himma.

• Author: Fadel, Mohammad

The Tale of Princess Fatima, Warrior Woman: The Arabic Epic of Dhat al-Himma. Translated by MELANIE MAGIDOW. New York: PENGUIN BOOKS, 2021. Pp. xxxiv+ 167. S16.

Recent years have seen organized efforts to introduce more works of Arabic literature to the English reader through translation. One such institutional effort is that of New York University Abu Dhabi's Library of Arabic Literature (LAL), which has published scores of translations of primary texts of Arabic literature from various genres into English, many for the first time. With the exception of Bruce Fudge's translation of A Hundred and One Nights and P. Marcel Kurpershoek's translations of Najdi verse, the works selected for translation in LAL circulated primarily within elite circles, whether of litterateurs, poets, theologians, jurists, or other intellectuals. Given the dearth of high-quality English translations of canonical works of Arabic literature of all genres, this focus on the literary output of the Arabicspeaking intellectual elite is completely understandable. Nevertheless, premodern Arabic speaking societies also had a vibrant culture of popular literature that, with the exception of The Thousand and One Nights, is virtually unknown to English-speaking audiences. It is for that reason that Melanie Magidow's partial translation of the popular epic of Dhat al-Himma, titled "The Tale of Princess Fatima, Warrior Woman: The Arabian Epic of Dhat al-Himma," is very much welcome.

The Arabic genre of the popular epic (sira) was ubiquitous in premodern Arabic societies. Primarily an oral tradition, reciters of these epics (munshidun) would perform episodes from these popular works at different kinds of public venues such as coffee houses and other places of public gathering. Some of these popular epics told the stories of pre-Islamic Arab heroes--e.g., the African-descended warrior-poet 'Antar ibn Shaddad and the legendary king of Southern Arabia Sayf ibn DhT Yazan--while others told the story of Islamic-era Arab migrations, such as the epic of Abu Zayd al-HilalT. The story of Dhat al-Himma, by contrast, is located in the late Umayyad and early Abbasid periods, with much of the heroic action taking place along the Anatolian frontier in the form of martial confrontations between the Arabs and the Byzantine Rum.

The modern Arabic print version of sirat dhat al-himma is published in seven volumes and includes some 455 episodes. It begins with the heroine's...