This book is a modern retelling by the famous Lebanese writer Hanan al-Sheikh of one of the masterpieces of world literature - the tales of One Thousand and One Nights. It all starts with the fact that his wife cheated on King Shahryar. In a fit of rage, he executes her and, disappointed in women, vows to marry a virgin every day, and the next morning send her to the chopping block. The daughter of the vizier Shahrazad volunteered to become his wife. A skillful storyteller, she managed to fascinate the king with her stories, each of which at dawn turned out to be still unfinished, so Shahryar had to constantly postpone her execution in order to find out what happened next. These stories tell of how men oppress, judge, and punish women—in a variety of ways, from flogging to prison to quartering. Sometimes women manage to stay alive, outwit and defeat the stronger sex, and sometimes everything ends tragically. Hanan al-Sheikh leads us from story to story, bewitching us and luring us deeper and deeper into a cunning narrative full of exotic sounds and smells, until we, like the cruel King Shahryar, completely fall under the power of the narrator.