Response to “Shahrazad’s Enormous Wings: A Parable of Reception” by Ryan Milov-Córdoba

Abstract

Response to “Shahrazad’s Enormous Wings: A Parable of Reception” by Ryan Milov-Córdoba Lieselot De Taeye, Respondent In “Shahrazad’s Enormous Wings: A Parable of Reception,” Ryan Milov-Córdoba examines the reception of The Arabian Nights by Latin-American magical realist writers from the twentieth century. His article analyzes Jorge Luis Borges’s reflections on the infinity of the Nights, Gabriel García Márquez’s recollections of learning how to read the book, Isabel Allende’s thoughts on Shahrazad as a feminist rebel, and Arturo Uslar Pietri’s framing of the book as a historical predecessor of the Venezuelan short story. Milov-Córdoba mostly points out how these authors integrated The Arabian Nights into their own personal literary projects, and how that made them lean towards reductive readings and stereotypical representations. He thus highlights the missed opportunities of connection; the moments where Arab-American conversations or collaborations could have been established but were not. Milov-Córdoba especially reflects on the absence of non-American interlocutors: leading literary voices from the Arab- and Persian-speaking world were not part of the dialogue that defined the reception of The Arabian Nights in twentieth-century mainstream magical realism. Neither Allende, Borges, Márquez, nor Pietri engaged Arab or Persian authors in their writings about The Arabian Nights (also called The One Thousand and One Nights). In his piece, Milov-Córdoba retroactively establishes this dialogue, this South-South conversation, by juxtaposing the impressions of the Latin American writers with the words of three interpreters of the Nights from Arabic-speaking countries: Hussain Haddawy, Muhsin Mahdi, and Abdelfattah Kilito. Studying Congolese magical realist novels in a Western context can equally lead to stereotypical representations. Centering European literary history, which is always a risk, alienates the text from the West African environment in which it emerged and continues to circulate. Not allowing resonances with Congolese culture and religion to inform the readings of Sony Labou Tansi’s La vie et demie (1979), the novel I discuss in this special issue, would be a continuation of colonialist behaviour. Tansi himself actually pushed against this way of reading his work. Although he debuted as a novelist with the French house Seuil, thus engaging with a global-ist, mostly Western-inspired literary tradition, his poetry was written in his native tongue of Kikongo, and he was also the founder of the popular theatre company Rocado Zulu Théâtre. By staging his plays in Brazzaville, in the Republic of the Congo, he could reach his own people first, before the work could be recuperated and [End Page 226] integrated into a more Western framework. I am aware that my traditional academic article, even if it leans on the insights of Congolese scholars, does not entirely counteract this tendency. Its contribution lies mostly in contextualizing Tansi’s work and letting it challenge extant narrative theory. Milov-Córdoba’s article operates on a different level and in a more expansive way. He, for instance, cites Iraqi translator Husain Haddawy’s memories of reading The Arabian Nights and points out the strong links Haddawy’s text establishes between the Nights and contemporary storytelling traditions in Iran. In contrast to my article, Milov-Córdoba’s aim is not strictly to describe and historicize, but, as Haddawy’s text is not related to magical realism, it is rather to enlarge the framework for future research on magical realism. Milov-Córdoba’s reception history of The Arabian Nights thus becomes an act of reception in and of itself-a “parable”-as it creates an alternative framework that can guide future readers, scholars, and magical realist writers. The comparison between the personal testimonies of the Arab speaking and Latin American writers is presented as a way to bridge macropolitical divides between the Arab and American world. Milov-Córdoba’s text does not only analyze the importance of the personal and the lived experience, but also enacts it. As a scholar himself, he acknowledges the influence of his own background and life; moreover, his personal position is foregrounded as the starting point for knowledge creation. Reflecting on all of this, it seems that the balance Tansi found...