Antun Yusuf Hanna Diyab (Arabic: اَنْطون يوسُف حَنّا دِياب, romanized: Anṭūn Yūsuf Ḥannā Diyāb; born circa 1688) was a Syrian Maronite writer and storyteller. He originated the best-known versions of the tales of Aladdin and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves which have been added to the One Thousand and One Nights since French orientalist Antoine Galland translated and included them, after which they soon became popular across the West.[1]
Diyab was long known only from brief mentions in the diary of Antoine Galland, but the translation and publication of his Arabic manuscript autobiography in 2015 expanded knowledge about his life. Reassessments of Diyab's contribution to Les mille et une nuits, Galland's widely influential version of the oriental stories of One Thousand and One Nights, have argued that Diyab is central to the literary history of such famous tales as Aladdin and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, despite Diyab only having being named as "Hanna from Aleppo" in Galland's diary.[2]
Literary scholars Ruth B. Bottigheimer[3] and Paulo Lemos Horta have argued that Diyab should be understood as the original author of some of the stories published by Galland, and even that several of these stories, including Aladdin, were partly inspired by Diyab's own life, as there are parallels with his autobiography.[4][5]
Further, scholars have argued that the travelogue provides an oriental outsider's view of Paris in 1708-1709, as well as extensive glimpses into other aspects of Diyab's world. Though it may not always reflect Diyab's eye-witness experiences, his autobiography also provides information about the places and cultures he encountered, and his identity as an accomplished oriental raconteur.[6]
14th-century Arabic manuscript of Arabian nights
^Waxman, Olivia B. (May 23, 2019). "Was Aladdin Based on a Real Person? Here's Why Scholars Are Starting to Think So". Time. Retrieved 3 February 2021.
^Razzaque, Arafat A. (2017-09-14). "Who "wrote" Aladdin? The Forgotten Syrian Storyteller". Ajam Media Collective. Retrieved 2023-12-02.
^Bottigheimer, Ruth B. “East Meets West” (2014).
^Horta, Paulo Lemos (2018). Aladdin: A New Translation. Liveright Publishing. pp. 8–10. ISBN 9781631495175. Retrieved 23 May 2019.
^Paulo Lemos Horta, Marvellous Thieves: Secret Authors of the Arabian Nights (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017), pp. 24-95.
^John-Paul Ghobrial, review of Hanna Dyâb, D’Alep à Paris: Les pérégrinations d’un jeune syrien au temps de Louis XIV, ed. and trans. by Paule Fahmé-Thiéry, Bernard Heyberger, and Jérôme Lentin (Sindbad, 2015), The English Historical Review, volume 132, issue 554 (February 2017), 147–49, doi:10.1093/ehr/cew417.
Antun Yusuf HannaDiyab (Arabic: اَنْطون يوسُف حَنّا دِياب, romanized: Anṭūn Yūsuf ḤannāDiyāb; born circa 1688) was a Syrian Maronite writer and storyteller...
encounter with a Maronite storyteller from Aleppo, HannaDiyab. According to Galland's diary, he met with Hanna, who had travelled from Aleppo to Paris with...
French translator Antoine Galland, who heard it from Syrian storyteller HannaDiyab. As one of the most popular Arabian Nights tales, it has been widely...
French translator Antoine Galland after he heard them from Syrian writer HannaDiyab during the latter's visit to Paris. Other stories, such as "The Seven...
heard the "Aladdin" story from the Maronite traveller and storyteller HannaDiyab, in Paris, probably in the French language. The film is the oldest surviving...
is based on elements from the One Thousand and One Nights written by HannaDiyab, including "Aladdin," "The Story of Prince Ahmed and the Fairy Perī-Bānū"...
Ruth Bottigheimer, ascribe its source to a Maronite Christian named HannaDiyab, from whom French author Antoine Galland collected the story. According...
Made the Nights Immortal: The Tales of the Syrian Maronite Storyteller ḤannāDiyāb." Marvels & Tales, vol. 32, no. 1, 2018, pp. 114–129. JSTOR, http://www...
translation. Galland had in turn heard these tales from the Syrian storyteller HannaDiyab. Galland also adapted his translation to the taste of the time. The immediate...
Syrian origin, supplemented by oral tales recorded by him in Paris from HannaDiyab, a Maronite Arab from Aleppo. The first English translation appeared...
Mustawfi Ibn Nubata al-Nafzawi Ibn Khaldun Al-Qalqashandi Ottoman era Al-Nabulsi Fuzûlî Abdul Qadir al-Baghdadi HannaDiyab Ibn al-Wannan Ahmed Ben Triki...
Mustawfi Ibn Nubata al-Nafzawi Ibn Khaldun Al-Qalqashandi Ottoman era Al-Nabulsi Fuzûlî Abdul Qadir al-Baghdadi HannaDiyab Ibn al-Wannan Ahmed Ben Triki...
Dalila – economist, political activist and former political prisoner HannaDiyab Ziad Abdullah – novelist and screenwriter Nasib Arida Mary Ajami Sadiq...
Mustawfi Ibn Nubata al-Nafzawi Ibn Khaldun Al-Qalqashandi Ottoman era Al-Nabulsi Fuzûlî Abdul Qadir al-Baghdadi HannaDiyab Ibn al-Wannan Ahmed Ben Triki...
Mustawfi Ibn Nubata al-Nafzawi Ibn Khaldun Al-Qalqashandi Ottoman era Al-Nabulsi Fuzûlî Abdul Qadir al-Baghdadi HannaDiyab Ibn al-Wannan Ahmed Ben Triki...
Mustawfi Ibn Nubata al-Nafzawi Ibn Khaldun Al-Qalqashandi Ottoman era Al-Nabulsi Fuzûlî Abdul Qadir al-Baghdadi HannaDiyab Ibn al-Wannan Ahmed Ben Triki...
Arabic-speaking physicians and scientists. In 1709, the Maronite storyteller HannaDiyab (1688 – c.1770) from Aleppo was involved in a work of world literature...
Mustawfi Ibn Nubata al-Nafzawi Ibn Khaldun Al-Qalqashandi Ottoman era Al-Nabulsi Fuzûlî Abdul Qadir al-Baghdadi HannaDiyab Ibn al-Wannan Ahmed Ben Triki...
Mustawfi Ibn Nubata al-Nafzawi Ibn Khaldun Al-Qalqashandi Ottoman era Al-Nabulsi Fuzûlî Abdul Qadir al-Baghdadi HannaDiyab Ibn al-Wannan Ahmed Ben Triki...
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