What a wild ride! Impostures by al-Hariri tells the adventures of Abū Zayd al-Sarūjī as he travels through the medieval Middle East. In a series of echoing stories, readers learn that he is a linguistically brilliant trickster. This fact makes translation a difficult thing: how does one transform extensive wordplay in one language to another? Translator Michael Cooperson performs literary pyrotechnics as he turns ancient Arabic wordplay into English stories that convey the same kind of literary gymnastics. Cooperson chooses to use dozens of different literary styles—from Geoffrey Chaucer to Mark Twain, from Shakespeare to Virginia Woolf, as well as a whole array of global accents. The book is absolutely fascinating—but the reader must be aware that at heart it is an intellectual puzzle rather than a collection of simple folk tales.

Excellent book. I love a good con. And this book delivers. I read it was translated from Arabic to English, which must have been very difficult but great job.

This book follows a middle Eastern man around the Mideast. Very clever, he is a con man and takes on different roles to con people. An excellent and clever wordsmith, and the descriptions of the places and different adventures he goes on is unbelievably great! I gave it 4 stars for its unique and just a downright great read! 4 stars! Again!

Special thanks to NYU press and NetGalley for my ARC copy.