Kaltham Al-Ghanem

Beautiful and kind, Hamda was the daughter of a humble fisherman in this variant of the Cinderella story from the folklore of the Arabian Gulf. Mistreated by her stepmother, she found an ally in the magical fisaikra fish whose life she had spared, and this piscine friend aided her whenever she was in need. When her stepmother and stepsisters went off to attend a party being thrown by the wife of the Shaikhm, leaving Hamda to sort a pile of wheat from barley, Hamda was aided by the household animals, and then by Fisaikra and her underwater confederates, attending the party after all, dressed in unimaginable finery. When she lost one of her jewel-encrusted slippers while leaving, and this footwear was discovered by the Shaikh's son, Hamda's life was transformed...

Originally published in Arabic as حمدة وفسيكرة, Hamda and Fisaikra is a lovely book, featuring a fascinating variant of a well-known and well-loved tale, and gorgeous artwork. Author Kaltham Al-Ghanem is an academic who teaches at Qatar University, and who is involved in a variety of anthropological investigations. Her retelling here, translated into English by Andy Smart, is engaging, and reminded me strongly of the Iraqi variant of this tale that is retold in Rebecca Hickox's The Golden Sandal: A Middle Eastern Cinderella Story. In both tales, the heroine spares the life of a fish who then becomes her guardian angel, but in this version specific to the Gulf Coast, the fish is a fisaikra, as a twobar seabream/two-banded porgy is known, in the Qatari dialect. The accompanying illustrations from May al-Mannai, who works for the Al Jazeera Children's television channel in Qatar, are lovely, with a deep, vibrant color scheme, and beautiful, stylized figures. This is one I would recommend to all folklore enthusiasts, and to readers interested in global variants of the Cinderella story.… (meer)