This new translation of One Thousand and One Nights makes the oldest Arabic version of the famous collection of oriental tales accessible to German readers for the first time. The translator, Claudia Ott, guides us through the labyrinth of intricately woven narrative threads with a freshness and ease that makes one feel as if they are hearing Scheherazade herself. It is no longer a European Orientalism that speaks to us through One Thousand and One Nights, but finally the Orient itself. The nightly tales of Scheherazade, with which she enchants her royal husband and continually postpones her execution, transport the reader into the world of bazaars and caravanserais, wise caliphs and cunning merchants, noble ladies and clever wives, powerful sorceresses, jinn, and evil demons. They recount tales of erotic pleasures and harsh strokes of fate.