Here is a downloadable audio link to an interview between National Public Radio's Tom Ashbrook and Marina Warner, who recently published Stranger Magic, a retelling of the Nights with some academic additions.
The interview on the whole is interesting but a bit general, but then again, what is "correct" is certainly debatable vis-a-vis the Nights.
Show: http://onpoint.wbur.org/2012/03/30/the-arabian-nights
"The Arabian Nights
A new twist on the old magic in the tales of the Arabian Nights.
The Tales of a Thousand and One Nights – the Arabian Nights – start with a terrible premise. The great sultan has decided to marry a new virgin every night, and cut off her head in the morning. Candidates are running out.
Young Scheherazade volunteers for the job. And tells the sultan a story so compelling, every night, that when she leaves him hanging in the morning he can’t bear to kill her. Until finally, he falls in love. After a thousand and one stories of magic and genies, enchantment, pleasure and sin.
This hour, On Point: a new take, twist, on the old magic in the tales of the Arabian Nights.
-Tom Ashbrook"
Thank you for posting this, it was very refreshing.
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