Fabulous Machinery for the Curious

An absorbing, joyous, and colorful collection of stories from the qissa genre.
 
Fabulous Machinery for the Curious presents the first English translation of some of the finest texts from the qissa genre. In this book, acclaimed translator Musharraf Ali Farooqi gathers the greatest of these tales, written or transcribed in the Urdu language by master storytellers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
 
Spreading from Persia to Arabia to South Asia over 1,500 years, the qissa appropriated verse and prose narratives to become the preeminent storytelling genre. The combined traditions of the many cultures of Indo-Islamic civilization resulted in a flowering of qissas in Urdu. This collection distills a vast body of oral and written literature, from resplendent sagas of romantic love and thrilling adventures in fairyland to picaresque stories of deception and haunting tales of nobility and viciousness.Fabulous Machinery for the Curious brings these forgotten gems to a new generation of readers and reminds us of the abiding power that great stories and ancient genres have for engaging the contemporary world.

An absorbing, joyous, and colorful collection of stories from the qissa genre.
 
Fabulous Machinery for the Curious presents the first English translation of some of the finest texts from the qissa genre. In this book, acclaimed translator Musharraf Ali Farooqi gathers the greatest of these tales, written or transcribed in the Urdu language by master storytellers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
 
Spreading from Persia to Arabia to South Asia over 1,500 years, the qissa appropriated verse and prose narratives to become the preeminent storytelling genre. The combined traditions of the many cultures of Indo-Islamic civilization resulted in a flowering of qissas in Urdu. This collection distills a vast body of oral and written literature, from resplendent sagas of romantic love and thrilling adventures in fairyland to picaresque stories of deception and haunting tales of nobility and viciousness.Fabulous Machinery for the Curious brings these forgotten gems to a new generation of readers and reminds us of the abiding power that great stories and ancient genres have for engaging the contemporary world.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Qissa 1: The Ingenious Farkhanda and the Two Conditions
Translation of Char Gulshan by Rai Beni Narayan

Qissa 2: The Adventures of a Soldier 
Translation of Qissa Sipahizada by Khushdil Kiratpuri

Qissa 3: Chhabili the Innkeeper 
Translation of Qissa Chhabili Bhattiyari by unknown author

Qissa 4: Azar Shah and Saman Rukh Bano 
Translation of Nau Aaeen-e Hindi by Mehr Chand Khatri Mehr

Qissa 5: The Victim of Malice 
Translation of Qissa-e Maqtool-e Jafa by Amiruddin Khan Maani

Qissa 6: A Girl Named King Agar 
Translation of Qissa Agar o Gul by Saadat Khan Nasir

About the Authors and Narrators 
About the Translator