São Paulo – “Once upon a time, a tortoise and a hare ran a race, setting a mountain as its finish line. Confident in her lightness and speed, the hare tarried on the way and fell asleep. The tortoise, however, aware of his heavy weight, didn’t stopped or lingered during the race, and arrived at the mountain when the hare woke up.”
Who hasn’t heard of the fable of the hare and the tortoise? This is just one of the tales gathered in the book Fábulas Árabes, a research and translation work by Mamede Jarouche from the Arabic into Portuguese. The book collects ninety-one fables dated from the pre-Islamic period to the seventeenth century.
Fables are narratives present in cultures around the world in which the animals show human qualities. The lion is represented as someone noble, for example, the snake as deceitful, the donkey as hardworking, and so on.
The translator and researcher Mamed Jarouche turned to different manuscripts to select and present how this classic genre, so common in the upbringing of children around the word, was explored in the ancient Arab culture.
The book is divided into two parts, Fables scattered across different books and Luqman’s linked fables. “The scattered fables were a prospecting job,” Jarouche told ANBA. The linked fables are credited to Luqman, an Arab mythological figure.
“Fables are narratives that usually put animals or inanimate objects into action. They’re metaphors that address human relations through the cunning fox, the violent wolf, the treacherous tiger. They’re all allegories and underscore the human need to reflect,” Jarouche said. Luqman’s fable have moral of the story, while the oldest ones in the first part don’t.
The illustrations of the book are by Sandra Jávera, a Brazilian visual artist based in Spain. She made the sceneries and characters with pencil and watercolor based on a research on old Arab collections. The foreword is by Marina Colasanti, a renowned Brazilian children’s author.
Fábulas Árabes was launched in November 2021 and is on sale in bookstores across Brazil.
Quick facts
Fábulas Árabes
Translation and research by Mamede Mustafa Jarouche
Editora Globinho
Illustrations by Sandra Jávera
160 pages
ISBN: 9786588150269
BRL 58 (USD 11)
Translated by Guilherme Miranda
