In 1960 when Waciny Laredj was six years old and late to Quran school, he discovered what he thought was an old copy of the holy book left on his classroom's bookshelf. The book was missing its cover, its pages yellowed, ripped and tattered. The other pupils had avoided the book, but Laredj did not have much choice. He picked it up and made his way to his desk.
“I began reading it and for the first time, I felt like I was understanding the Quran,” says the Algerian author, who will be appearing at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature, which starts next week. “I was so absorbed by it, I decided to take it home.”
The book was inextricable from Laredj’s hands. He spent his days at home reading and rereading it. It was not until his cousin came over one day that he realised the book was not the Quran.
“My cousin asked me what I was reading, and I said it was the Quran,” Laredj, who is a professor at Sorbonne University in Paris, says. “He took the book from me and started laughing. It turned out I had been reading One Thousand and One Nights.”
The copy Laredj had taken was based on the 1835 Bulaq edition, which was published by the Egyptian government. The edition began with the Basmala Islamic invocation, which is why a six-year-old could have mistaken the collection of folktales for a sacred text. One Thousand and One Nights was nonetheless instrumental in instilling in Laredj an early fascination with Arabic, a language that was banned from schools in Algeria during the French colonial period and taught only at Quran centres.
“I don’t know how the copy of One Thousand and One Nights had ended up at that centre,” he says. “I think that was the foundation of my relationship with Arabic. It showed me how the language could be used to address not sacred matters, but human ones.”
One of his career-defining works, The Disaster of the Seventh Night after the One Thousand Night (1993), draws its title as well as several themes from the folktales. In it, Laredj uses the structure and rhythm of the original collection to reflect on subjects and issues in contemporary Algeria.
“It was written to the rhythm of One Thousand and One Nights,” Laredj says. “Maybe that’s what gave the book the luck to spread globally and with multiple translations.”
Laredj reflects on the book as his moment of “literary awareness”, saying he had written about social and everyday issues before, but The Disaster of the Seventh Night after the One Thousand Night marked a new chapter in his output. It also generated a new fascination with One Thousand and One Nights, and helped hone his penchant for reframing classic stories in a contemporary fashion.
“There are texts [that] when placed in the balance of time are invalidated,” he says. “But then there are works that endure, such as One Thousand and One Nights. How many times has it been burnt by extremists? Yet, every time it burns, it reignites and comes back. Like a phoenix. It has been a reference text, not only for Arab writers like Naguib Mahfouz, but also for the likes of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Marcel Proust.”
During one of his panel discussions at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature, Laredj will address the impact of One Thousand and One Nights on his life and work. He will speak about how his penultimate release, Hizya: The Sigh of a Slaughtered Gazelle as told by Lalla Mira, incorporates narrative styles found in the classic collection, while giving a novel twist to a romantic Algerian folktale.
“The novel is heavily influenced by the structure of One Thousand and One Nights,” he says. “Hizya is a story similar to Romeo and Juliet or Layla and Majnun, but here the female character takes on another role and is more resilient.”
His second appearance at this year's festival, which runs until February 3 at the InterContinental Dubai Festival City, will be alongside Egyptian novelist Mohammed Al Mansi Qindeel. The two will be speaking about “literature as a means for transportation”.
“The session will be about how reading opens doors for us and lets us travel,” he says. “I read Murakami and I’m in Japan. I read Abu Alaa al-Maari, and I’m in the medieval Arab world.”
While Laredj has appeared at the LitFest before, this will be his first participation since winning the prestigious Great Arab Minds award in 2023. He has also won other Arab literary prizes, including the Sheikh Zayed Book Award in 2007, the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2011 and 2014, and the Katara Prize for Arabic Novel in 2015.
For Laredj, these prizes are akin to Newton’s apple. He says: “You're asleep under a tree, enjoying the shade and suddenly an apple falls on you. It’s a beautiful moment. We don’t go towards prizes. They come to us.” The awards have opened doors for his career and led him to travel to unexpected places, he says.
“In these cases, I always remember my childhood when I was in a small village that doesn't even exist on maps,” he says. “One time I was in Los Angeles and looking at those high-rise buildings and I suddenly remembered myself as a little boy. I wondered if he would have ever thought 60 years ago that he’d reach that place. Impossible.”
The biog
Favourite book: You Are the Placebo – Making your mind matter, by Dr Joe Dispenza
Hobby: Running and watching Welsh rugby
Travel destination: Cyprus in the summer
Life goals: To be an aspirational and passionate University educator, enjoy life, be healthy and be the best dad possible.
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SHAITTAN
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Pad Man
Dir: R Balki
Starring: Akshay Kumar, Sonam Kapoor, Radhika Apte
Three-and-a-half stars
Lexus LX700h specs
Engine: 3.4-litre twin-turbo V6 plus supplementary electric motor
Power: 464hp at 5,200rpm
Torque: 790Nm from 2,000-3,600rpm
Transmission: 10-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 11.7L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh590,000
German intelligence warnings
- 2002: "Hezbollah supporters feared becoming a target of security services because of the effects of [9/11] ... discussions on Hezbollah policy moved from mosques into smaller circles in private homes." Supporters in Germany: 800
- 2013: "Financial and logistical support from Germany for Hezbollah in Lebanon supports the armed struggle against Israel ... Hezbollah supporters in Germany hold back from actions that would gain publicity." Supporters in Germany: 950
- 2023: "It must be reckoned with that Hezbollah will continue to plan terrorist actions outside the Middle East against Israel or Israeli interests." Supporters in Germany: 1,250
Source: Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution
The specs
Engine: 1.6-litre 4-cyl turbo
Power: 217hp at 5,750rpm
Torque: 300Nm at 1,900rpm
Transmission: eight-speed auto
Price: from Dh130,000
On sale: now
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
ESSENTIALS
The flights
Emirates flies from Dubai to Phnom Penh via Yangon from Dh2,700 return including taxes. Cambodia Bayon Airlines and Cambodia Angkor Air offer return flights from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap from Dh250 return including taxes. The flight takes about 45 minutes.
The hotels
Rooms at the Raffles Le Royal in Phnom Penh cost from $225 (Dh826) per night including taxes. Rooms at the Grand Hotel d'Angkor cost from $261 (Dh960) per night including taxes.
The tours
A cyclo architecture tour of Phnom Penh costs from $20 (Dh75) per person for about three hours, with Khmer Architecture Tours. Tailor-made tours of all of Cambodia, or sites like Angkor alone, can be arranged by About Asia Travel. Emirates Holidays also offers packages.
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GAC GS8 Specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo
Power: 248hp at 5,200rpm
Torque: 400Nm at 1,750-4,000rpm
Transmission: 8-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 9.1L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh149,900
The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo
Power: 261hp at 5,500rpm
Torque: 405Nm at 1,750-3,500rpm
Transmission: 9-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 6.9L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh117,059
Squid Game season two
Director: Hwang Dong-hyuk
Stars: Lee Jung-jae, Wi Ha-joon and Lee Byung-hun
Rating: 4.5/5
Key recommendations
- Fewer criminals put behind bars and more to serve sentences in the community, with short sentences scrapped and many inmates released earlier.
- Greater use of curfews and exclusion zones to deliver tougher supervision than ever on criminals.
- Explore wider powers for judges to punish offenders by blocking them from attending football matches, banning them from driving or travelling abroad through an expansion of ‘ancillary orders’.
- More Intensive Supervision Courts to tackle the root causes of crime such as alcohol and drug abuse – forcing repeat offenders to take part in tough treatment programmes or face prison.
The candidates
Dr Ayham Ammora, scientist and business executive
Ali Azeem, business leader
Tony Booth, professor of education
Lord Browne, former BP chief executive
Dr Mohamed El-Erian, economist
Professor Wyn Evans, astrophysicist
Dr Mark Mann, scientist
Gina MIller, anti-Brexit campaigner
Lord Smith, former Cabinet minister
Sandi Toksvig, broadcaster
The Sand Castle
Director: Matty Brown
Stars: Nadine Labaki, Ziad Bakri, Zain Al Rafeea, Riman Al Rafeea
Rating: 2.5/5
What is Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is the most popular virtual currency in the world. It was created in 2009 as a new way of paying for things that would not be subject to central banks that are capable of devaluing currency. A Bitcoin itself is essentially a line of computer code. It's signed digitally when it goes from one owner to another. There are sustainability concerns around the cryptocurrency, which stem from the process of "mining" that is central to its existence.
The "miners" use computers to make complex calculations that verify transactions in Bitcoin. This uses a tremendous amount of energy via computers and server farms all over the world, which has given rise to concerns about the amount of fossil fuel-dependent electricity used to power the computers.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Labour dispute
The insured employee may still file an ILOE claim even if a labour dispute is ongoing post termination, but the insurer may suspend or reject payment, until the courts resolve the dispute, especially if the reason for termination is contested. The outcome of the labour court proceedings can directly affect eligibility.
- Abdullah Ishnaneh, Partner, BSA Law
The specs
Engine: 3.0-litre six-cylinder turbo
Power: 398hp from 5,250rpm
Torque: 580Nm at 1,900-4,800rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Fuel economy, combined: 6.5L/100km
On sale: December
Price: From Dh330,000 (estimate)
MATCH INFO
Inter Milan 2 (Vecino 65', Barella 83')
Verona 1 (Verre 19' pen)
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%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EWest%20Asia%20Premiership%3C%2Fstrong%3E%0D%3Cbr%3EChampions%3A%20Dubai%20Tigers%0D%3Cbr%3ERunners%20up%3A%20Bahrain%0D%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EUAE%20Premiership%3C%2Fstrong%3E%0D%3Cbr%3EChampions%3A%20Jebel%20Ali%20Dragons%0D%3Cbr%3ERunners%20up%3A%20Dubai%20Hurricanes%0D%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EUAE%20Division%201%3C%2Fstrong%3E%0D%3Cbr%3EChampions%3A%20Dubai%20Sharks%0D%3Cbr%3ERunners%20up%3A%20Abu%20Dhabi%20Harlequins%20II%0D%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EUAE%20Division%202%3C%2Fstrong%3E%0D%3Cbr%3EChampions%3A%20Dubai%20Tigers%20III%0D%3Cbr%3ERunners%20up%3A%20Dubai%20Sharks%20II%0D%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EDubai%20Sevens%3C%2Fstrong%3E%0D%3Cbr%3EChampions%3A%20Dubai%20Tigers%0D%3Cbr%3ERunners%20up%3A%20Dubai%20Hurricanes%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
David Haye record
Total fights: 32
Wins: 28
Wins by KO: 26
Losses: 4
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The specs
Engine: 4.0-litre flat-six
Torque: 450Nm at 6,100rpm
Transmission: 7-speed PDK auto or 6-speed manual
Fuel economy, combined: 13.8L/100km
On sale: Available to order now
Israel Palestine on Swedish TV 1958-1989
Director: Goran Hugo Olsson
Rating: 5/5
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Ferrari 12Cilindri specs
Engine: naturally aspirated 6.5-liter V12
Power: 819hp
Torque: 678Nm at 7,250rpm
Price: From Dh1,700,000
Available: Now
Greatest of All Time
Starring: Vijay, Sneha, Prashanth, Prabhu Deva, Mohan
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Royal wedding inspired menu
Ginger, citrus and orange blossom iced tea
Avocado ranch dip with crudites
Cucumber, smoked salmon and cream cheese mini club sandwiches
Elderflower and lemon syllabub meringue
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE
Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman, Emma Corrin
Director: Shawn Levy
Rating: 3/5
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
SPECS
Engine: Two-litre four-cylinder turbo
Power: 235hp
Torque: 350Nm
Transmission: Nine-speed automatic
Price: From Dh167,500 ($45,000)
On sale: Now
Our Time Has Come
Alyssa Ayres, Oxford University Press
