Hasib & The Queen of Serpents
A Thousand and One Nights Tale
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- ¥1,100
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- ¥1,100
Publisher Description
Heir to the wise Daniel, Hâsib is a young woodcutter promised to a great future. When his greedy companions abandon him in the middle of the forest, he meets the Queen of Serpents. She then tells her story, a fabulous adventure filled with gods and demons, princes and prophets. From Kabul to Cairo, journeys intertwine with intrigues and spiritual quests while the fabulous nights follow one another. An enchanting and intricately designed interpretation of the story of Hâsib Karîm ad-Dîm, through which David B. opens for us the gates of the Thousand and One Nights. For mature readers.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Nothing is as it seems in this relentlessly paced but sumptuously decorated graphic adaptation from the Arabian Nights, by the creator of Epileptic. A barely clothed and bedroom-eyed Scheherazade starts her 422nd night by telling the enraptured king the story of the sage's heir, H sib, who "never learned or did anything." After a trick leaves him trapped underground, H sib embarks on the first of many adventures, meeting the Serpent Queen, who in exchange for his story tells him one of her own. That tale tracks the Cairene King Bulukiya who, after varied and magical travels in search of the prophet Mohamed, encounters a prince who unfurls a lengthy digression on his love affair with a bird woman and great battles of animals and demons. These narrative nesting dolls are densely constructed with mythology, fable, tragedy, and romance, but never seem archaic, perhaps in part due to the modernized language ("Go to his aid instead of whining"). Similarly, the brightly colored artwork nods to antiquity, with flattened perspectives and the action rendered like carvings. This sumptuous sprawl enchants like a collection of grown-up fairy tales. (June)
