The Jewel and the Ember

The Jewel and the Ember is a unique collection of enchanting, enlightening, joyful, painful, and funny pre-Islamic love stories drawn from ancient sources throughout the Middle East, illustrating our eternal search for enduring love and encouraging the heart to sing. The human soul is eternally engaged in the search for enduring love. The Jewel and the Ember is a unique collection of compelling, enlightening, sometimes joyful, sometimes painful, often funny love stories culled from pre- Islamic folktales and poems, drawn from ancient sources throughout the Middle East, including Zoroastrian Persia, Turkey, Afghanistan, Moorish Spain, and Arabia. These eleven timeless tales resonate across cultures and ethnicities, adapted and retold (though not reinvented) from lengthy, dense translations and provide alternatives to the all-too-common Arabian Nights and other Orientalist sagas.