Hanna Diyab
Syrian writer and storyteller (c. 1688 – after 1763)
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Through Paris
Diyab was long known only from brief mentions in the diary of Antoine Galland, but the translation and publication of his Arabic manuscript autobiography in 2015 expanded knowledge about his life. Reassessments of Diyab's contribution to Les mille et une nuits, Galland's widely influential version of the oriental stories of One Thousand and One Nights, have argued that Diyab is central to the literary history of such famous tales as Aladdin and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, despite Diyab only having been named as "Hanna from Aleppo" in Galland's diary.
Literary scholars Ruth Bottigheimer and Paulo Lemos Horta have argued that Diyab should be understood as the original author of some of the stories published by Galland, and even that several of these stories, including Aladdin, were partly inspired by Diyab's own life, as there are parallels with his autobiography.
Further, scholars have argued that the travelogue provides an oriental outsider's view of Paris in 1708–1709, as well as extensive glimpses into other aspects of Diyab's world. Though it may not always reflect Diyab's eye-witness experiences, his autobiography also provides information about the places and cultures he encountered, and his identity as an accomplished oriental raconteur.
Life
Early life in Syria and journey to France
Diyab was born to a Maronite Christian family in Aleppo, Ottoman Syria, around 1688 and lost his father while still in his teens. Working as a young man for French merchants in Syria, Diyab learned French and Italian; according to Galland, he also had a knowledge of Provençal and Turkish; it is also possible that, as a Maronite, he knew some Syriac.
Diyab briefly joined a Maronite monastery on Mount Lebanon as a novice, but decided not to become a monk. As he proceeded home, around the beginning of 1707, he met the Frenchman Paul Lucas, who was on an expedition in search of antiquities on behalf of Louis XIV of France. Lucas invited Diyab to return with him to France, working as a servant, assistant and interpreter, suggesting that he might find work at the Royal Library in Paris.
Leaving Aleppo in February 1707, they visited Egypt, Tripoli, Tunisia, Corsica, Livorno, Genoa, and Marseille before reaching Paris early in 1708, where Diyab's stay culminated with his reception at Versailles by king Louis XIV. Diyab was received with some excitement in Paris, partly because Lucas had him wear national dress and carry a cage containing two jerboas from Tunis. After around two years, Diyab tired of seeking advancement and returned to Aleppo in 1710.
Telling stories to Galland
While in Paris, Diyab first met the Orientalist Antoine Galland on Sunday, March 17, 1709. Galland's diary contains extended summaries of stories told by Diyab on March 25. Galland recorded more stories, apparently from oral telling, throughout May and into June that year. He went on to include these works as a continuation of his French translation of an incomplete Arabic manuscript of the Thousand and One Nights, and they include some of the stories that became the most popular and closely associated with the Thousand and One Nights in later world literature. It seems likely that Diyab told these stories in French. Diyab's autobiography represents Lucas as having miraculous medical capabilities, but Diyab enjoyed less acknowledgement from his French associates: he received no credit in Galland's published work, nor any mention in the writing of Lucas. According to the autobiography, Galland was afraid that Diyab would gain a position at the Royal Library that he desired for himself and Galland conspired to send Diyab back to Aleppo.
Later life
After his return to Aleppo in 1710, Diyab became a successful cloth merchant with the help of his brother Abdallah. He married in 1717 and had extensive progeny. By 1740, he lived in one of the community's largest households, alongside his mother and two elder brothers.
As well as writing his autobiography in 1763, Diyab seems to have copied (or at least owned) another manuscript, Vatican Library, Sbath 108, containing Arabic translations of the Sefaretname travelogue by Ilyas Al-Mawsili concerning his own travels, Ilyas's history of the Spanish conquest of the Americas, and an account by the Ottoman ambassador Yirmisekizzade Mehmed Said Pasha of his 1719 embassy to France.
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Reception
In his postscript to the German edition of Diyab's travelogue, the French historian Bernard Heyberger calls it "a unique document thanks to its narrative qualities, rich observations, and the familiarity he establishes with the reader through the description of his impressions and feelings." Further, he emphasizes Diyab's personal style, which is characterized by the lively speech of the oriental narrator typical for the popular gatherings in coffeehouses and gardens of Aleppo. With reference to Diyab's humble social origins, his self-confidence and his portrayal of European people and events, the travelogue is, according to Heyberger, an early example in Syrian literature of the perspective "from the bottom up, [from] the point of view of the subaltern". Due to his early acquaintance with European merchants and their languages, Diyab did not feel that he belonged to a completely different, oriental culture. Rather, he described numerous experiences as a self-assured middleman who acted in the service of respectable European travelers and scientists.
As tabulated by Ulrich Marzolph, the tales told by Diyab to Galland, most of which appeared in Galland's Les mille et une nuits, were:
Though usually corresponding to widespread international tale-types and both presented by Galland and often still imagined today as traditional Arabic folk-tales, it is likely that Diyab's repertoire and narrative style reflects his education and literary reading, multilingualism, and extensive travels within and beyond the Arab world.