Tree of Pearls, Queen of Egypt

Title Page, Copyright

Tree of Pearls, Queen of Egypt Middle East Literature in Translation Michael Beard and Adnan Haydar, Series Editors Syracuse University Press and the King Fahd Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies, University of Arkansas, are pleased to announce TREE OF PEARLS, QUEEN OF EGYPT as the 2011 winner of the King Fahd Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies Translation of Arabic Literature Award. Previous winners of the King Fahd Center prize Blood Test: A Novel Abbas Beydoun; Max Weiss, trans. The Pistachio Seller Reem Bassiouney; Osman Nusairi, trans. The World Through the Eyes of Angels Mahmoud Saeed; Samuel Salter, Zahra Jishi, and Rafah Abuinnab, trans. Tree of Pearls, Queen of Egypt Jurji Zaydan Translated from the Arabic by Samah Selim With an Afterword by Roger Allen Syracuse University Press English translation copyright © 2012 by Samah Selim All Rights Reserved First Edition 2012 12 13 14 15 16 17 6 5 4 3 2 1 Originally published in Arabic as Shajarat al-Durr (Cairo: Dar al-Hilal, 1914). ∞ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, dialogues, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. For a listing of books published and distributed by Syracuse University Press, visit our website at SyracuseUniversityPress.syr.edu. ISBN: 978-0-8156-0999-5 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Zaydan, Jirji, 1861–1914. [Shajarat al-Durr. English] Tree of pearls, queen of Egypt / Jurji Zaydan ; translated from the Arabic by Samah Selim ; with an afterword by Roger Allen. p. cm. — (Middle East literature in translation) ISBN 978-0-8156-0999-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Shajarat al-Durr, Sultana of Egypt, d. 1257—Fiction. 2. Zaydan, Jirji, 1861–1914—Translations into English. I. Selim, Samah. II. Title. PJ7876.A9S3813 2012 892.7'35—dc23 2012034829 Manufactured in the United States of America Jurji Zaydan (1861–1914) was one of the most important Arab writers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Born in Beirut in 1861, he emigrated to Cairo in 1882 and died there in 1914, on the eve of World War I and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. In Cairo, Zaydan founded Al-Hilal (The Crescent), the longest-lived cultural and literary journal of the Arab world (1892– ), which he edited and to which he frequently contributed. He authored two canonical multi-volume histories of Arabic literature and Islamic civilization, and twenty-three historical novels that span twelve centuries of Islamic history. Many of these novels were translated into a variety of Asian and Middle Eastern languages throughout the twentieth century and they continue to enjoy the same popularity today throughout the Arab world as they did one hundred years ago. Samah Selim is a scholar and prize-winning translator of modern Arabic literature. Her translations include Yahya Taher Abdullah’s The Collar and the Bracelet (2008) and Miral Al-Tahawi’s Brooklyn Heights (2011). She currently teaches at Rutgers University. ...