Read more
(Bilingual English-French edition / Edition bilingue anglais-français) Fatima is a young woman whose life seems beset by one disaster after another. Setting forth on a journey from her home in the West, she is shipwrecked and cast ashore alone near Alexandria, Egypt. Adopted by a local family of weavers, and beginning to prosper in her new life, she is captured and forced to work making masts for ships. While undertaking a journey to sell the masts, she finds herself shipwrecked once again - this time off the coast of China, where she finally realizes that what seemed to be disasters were really essential steps toward her eventual fulfillment. Full of wisdom and depth, and ideal as a bedtime story, Fatima's tale helps children understand the need for perseverance to reach their goals. This traditional teaching story is well known in Greek folklore, but the present version is attributed to Sheikh Mohamed Jamaludin of Adrianople (modern-day Edirne in Turkey), who died in 1750. Fatima the Spinner and the Tent is filled with wonderful illustrations by Natasha Delmar, who was taught to paint by her father, the celebrated classic Chinese painter Ng Yi-Ching. Delmar captures Fatima's adventures with a wealth of detail and color and, using Middle Eastern and Chinese design, transports readers to the exotic lands of Fatima's travels in a way delightful to both young and old.
Fatima est une jeune femme dont la vie semble assaillie par une catastrophe après l'autre. Partant pour un voyage depuis sa maison en Occident, elle fait naufrage et est jetée seule à terre près d'Alexandrie, en Égypte. Adoptée par une famille locale de tisserands, et commençant à prospérer dans sa nouvelle vie, elle est capturée et forcée de travailler à la fabrication de mâts pour navires. Alors qu'elle entreprend un voyage pour vendre les mâts, elle se retrouve à nouveau naufragée - cette fois au large de la côte de chine, où elle se rend finalement compte que ce qui semblait être des catastrophes étaient des étapes vraiment essentielles vers son épanouissement éventuel. Plein de sagesse et de profondeur, et idéal comme histoire au coucher, le conte de Fatima aide les enfants à comprendre le besoin de persévérance pour atteindre leurs objectifs. Cette histoire-enseignement traditionnelle est bien connue dans le folklore grec, mais la version actuelle est attribuée au cheikh Mohamed Jamaludin d'Andrinople (aujourd'hui Edirne en Turquie), décédé en 1750. Fatima la fileuse et la tente est remplie de magnifiques illustrations de Natasha Delmar, qui a appris à peindre par son père, le célèbre peintre chinois classique Ng Yi-Ching. Delmar capture les aventures de Fatima avec une richesse de détails et de couleurs et, en utilisant un design moyen-oriental et chinois, transporte les lecteurs vers les terres exotiques des voyages de Fatima d'une manière ravissante pour petits et grands.
About the author
Idries Shah spent much of his life collecting and publishing Sufi classical narratives and teaching stories from oral and written sources in the Middle East and Central Asia. The tales he retold especially for children are published by Hoopoe Books in beautifully illustrated editions and have been widely commended - by Western educators and psychologists, the U.S. Library of Congress, National Public Radio and other media - for their unique ability to foster social-emotional development, thinking skills and perception in children and adults alike. Told for centuries, these stories express universal themes from the cultures that produced them, showing how much we have in common and can learn from each other. As noted by reviewers, such stories are more than just entertaining; familiarity with them provokes flexibility of thought, since each one contains levels of meaning that unfold in accordance with an individual's experience and understanding.
