Part 1 of 5 · freeIntroduction
The One Thousand and One Nights (Alf Layla wa-Layla) is not the work of a single author. It is a palimpsest: centuries of tales, spoken and written, Indian, Persian, Arab and Egyptian.
At the center sits a dizzying idea: a woman, Scheherazade, turns storytelling into a shield. As long as she keeps talking, the king who wanted her dead has to wait. Here's how words become a weapon for survival.
The rest is in the Sophia app.The remaining parts, the open-book quiz and the full glossary. Free to start; Premium unlocks everything.
- 2An architecture of paper: how a world-text was born
- 3The power of Scheherazade: storytelling as a shield
- 4The turn to Europe and the making of a myth
- 5A modern book and its philosophy
Open-book quiz8 questions whose answers are in the text.
Glossary11 terms explained in a tap.
30 languagesThe same course, from French to Japanese.
