Folktales are instrumental in ensuring the survival of oral traditions and strengthening communal bonds. Both the stories and the process of storytelling itself help to define social, cultural and political identity. For Palestinians, the threat of losing their heritage has engendered a sense of urgency among storytellers and Palestinian folklorists. Yet there has been remarkably little academic scholarship dedicated to the tradition. Farah Aboubakr here analyses a selection of folktales edited, compiled and translated by Ibrahim Muhawi and Sharif Kanaana in Speak, Bird, Speak Again (1989). In addition to the folktales themselves, Muhawi and Kanaana's collection is renowned for providing readers with extensive folkloric, historical and anthropological annotations. Here, for the first time, the folktales and the compilers' work on them, are the subject of scholarly analysis. Synthesising various disciplines including memory studies, gender studies and social movement studies, Aboubakr uses the collection to understand the politics of storytelling and its impact on Palestinian identity. In particular, the book draws attention to the female storytellers who play an essential role in transmitting and preserving collective memory and culture. The book is an important step towards analysing a significant genre of Palestinian literature and will be relevant to scholars of Palestinian politics and popular culture, gender studies and memory studies, and those interested in folklore and oral literature.

A collection of Palestinian Arab folktales which reflect the culture and highlights the role of women in the society.

Providing insight into Arab culture, Patai offers extensive notes and commentary on particular Arabic phrases and images, as well as the ways of speaking and thinking found among the Arab population, especially the Bedouins, in Palestine and Israel. Patai also places the stories in the context of global folktales, and traces the transformations in the art of storytelling.

A childless woman's prayers are answered by the arrival of a talking pot, but the new mother knows that Little Pot must learn right from wrong just like any child.

A collection of 30 traditional Syrian and Lebanese folktales infused with new life by Lebanese women, collected by Najla Khoury. While civil war raged in Lebanon, Najla Khoury traveled with a theater troupe, putting on shows in marginal areas where electricity was a luxury, in air raid shelters, Palestinian refugee camps, and isolated villages. Their plays were largely based on oral tales, and she combed the country in search of stories. Many years later, she chose one hundred stories from among the most popular and published them in Arabic in 2014, exactly as she received them, from the mouths of the storytellers who told them as they had heard them when they were children from their parents and grandparents. Out of the hundred stories published in Arabic, Inea Bushnaq and Najla Khoury chose thirty for this book.

Why do snakes eat frogs? What makes a man-eating ghoul turn vegetarian? And how can a woman make a bored prince smile? The answers to these and many other questions can be found in this delicious anthology of Palestinian folk tales collected and retold by Sonia Nimr. A wry sense of humour runs through the characterful women, genial tricksters and mischievous animals who make an appearance. Sonia's upbeat storytelling, bubbling with wit and humour, will delight readers discovering for the first time the rich tradition of Palestinian storytelling.

These 27 traditional folk stories were written down, shortly before her death, by Jamal Sleem Nuweihed, who had recounted them to the children of her extended family over many years. Authentically Arab in their themes, yet timelessly universal, they are sometimes magical, sometimes naturalistic, and combine a wealth of vivid detail with elements of pathos and humor. Translated by family members of various generations, then expertly edited, the book is a precious store of the kind of tale endlessly cherished but in danger of disappearing.