How history’s most remarkable storyteller – whose name was nearly lost to history – invented Aladdin and birthed a global sensation in One Thousand and One Nights

The tales of the One Thousand and One Nights have delighted and transfixed readers for centuries – but the storyteller who brought then to Europe, and who created Aladdin himself, has been almost lost to history. This is the story of Hanna Dyab, the Syrian teenager who journeyed from Aleppo to the Royal Court of Versailles and weaved his remarkable experiences into the dazzling stories of the Arabian nights.

In this vivid tale of literary deduction, acclaimed historian Matthew Teller restores authorship to the unknown teenager who collaborated with Antonie Galland to translate the Arabian nights onto French. Taking readers from eighteenth-century Syria to annals of world literature, Finding Aladdin is a richly told masterpiece for lovers of storytelling everywhere.

 

Matthew Teller is an author, journalist and documentary-maker. He writes for the BBC, CNN, The Times, Financial Times, Independent and Guardian and presents and produces documentaries for Radio 4 and BBC World Service. He is the author of Nine Quarters of Jerusalem (2022) and the editor of Daybreak in Gaza (2024).