Yemeni Popular Tales Encyclopedia inaugurated [Archives:2006/934/Local News]
Mohammed Al-Jabri
SANA'A, April 2 ) The Popular Heritage House (PHH) recently inaugurated the Yemeni Popular Tales Encyclopedia, considered the second such work of its kind. Composed by Arwa Abdu Othman, the encyclopedia is entitled, “Yemeni Popular Tales: 70 Popular Tales.” Tales were collected and gathered from the late '80s to the end of the '90s with the help of older women, mothers and other women, and then recorded on paper and cassette.
In the book's introduction, Othman refers to characteristics of Yemeni popular tales and elaborates on some of them. She also describes some famous Yemeni tales, classifying them into social, animal, puzzle, fun, popular beliefs and fairy tales.
Moreover, she mentions various obstacles in documenting such tales. Among them are limited individual efforts, primitive recording tools, absence of valuing such tales, Salafi culture's influence, villagers' poor living standards, poor recording of tales and lack of financial support.
The book is not confined to describing the study of such tales, which is of a critical nature, but includes 70 new popular tales published for the first time. Othman has heard, pursued and collected such tales on a wide scale, but she affirmed that the situation was not appropriate for her to widen the book's scope as she had hoped. She hoped she would double her efforts to collect and document popular tales from all parts of Yemen.
The encyclopedia was ready for publication years ago, but many local authorities did not respond to financing it. By chance, a team of Americans visited the PHH. The cultural attache of the U.S. embassy in Yemen agreed to the team's suggestion to publish the work.
Head of the PHH, Othman is a Yemeni researcher and writer, having graduated from Sana'a University's philosophy department in the Faculty of Arts, as well as a researcher in the Yemeni Research and Studies Center's social department.
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