A review by coriandercake
The Tale of Princess Fatima, Warrior Woman: The Arabic Epic of Dhat Al-Himma by Melanie Magidow

3.0

This was readable and fun. My issues with the book stem from translation choices. My first gripe is that it is so short. In the introduction, Magidow mentions that she chose stories from over 6000 pages of Arabic and the final product is only a measly 160. If this was a side project, I could maybe understand but Magidow mentioned receiving several endowments to work on this. I expect more from the final product. I am also not the biggest fan of "modernized" translations although this isn't as bad as some. I read these to get a feel for the historical period and deciding to brush over misogyny and descriptions of gore and violence isn't doing anyone any favors.