''Scorpion Soup'' is a limited edition collection of stories by the travel writer and novelist

Tahir Shah Tahir Shah (, ; ''né'' Sayyid Tahir al-Hashimi (Arabic: سيد طاهر الهاشمي); born 16 November 1966) is a British author, journalist and documentary maker of Afghan-Indian descent. Family Tahir Shah was born into the '' saadat'' ...

. The book was released on June 8, 2013 by Secretum Mundi Publishing.

Overview

The collection is unusual in that all 18 stories link into one another, starting with a first person story about a fisherman, and returning to that same character. Inspired by the ''

Arabian Nights ''One Thousand and One Nights'' (, ), is a collection of Middle Eastern folktales compiled in the Arabic language during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as ''The Arabian Nights'', from the first English-language edition () ...

'', Shah experiments with interwoven layers, allowing one tale to flow into the next in a technique known as the

Frame story A frame story (also known as a frame tale, frame narrative, sandwich narrative, or intercalation) is a literary technique that serves as a companion piece to a story within a story, where an introductory or main narrative sets the stage either fo ...

. As occurs in the ''Arabian Nights'', there is often no ending to one story before the next begins. The book has been inspired and is an homage to his grandfather,

Ikbal Ali Shah Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah (, ; 1894 in Sardhana, India – 4 November 1969 in Tangier, Morocco) was an Indian-Afghan author and diplomat descended from the Sadaat of Paghman. Born and educated in India, he came to Britain as a young man to continue ...

The stories of Scorpion Soup

*The Fisherman *Idyll *Capilongo *Mittle-Mittle *The Tale of the Rusty Nail *The Shop That Sold Truth *Frogland *The Book of Pure Thoughts *The Fish’s Dream *Scorpion Soup *The Clockmaker’s Bride *The Most Foolish of Man *The Man Whose Arms Grew Branches *The Hermit *Cat, Mouse *The Singing Serpents *The Princess of Zilzilam

Illustrations

''Scorpion Soup'' is illustrated with fold out maps from the ''

Atlas Maior The ''Atlas Maior'' is the final version of Joan Blaeu's atlas, published in Amsterdam between 1662 and 1672, in Latin (11 volumes), French (12 volumes), Dutch (9 volumes), German (10 volumes) and Spanish (10 volumes), containing 594 maps and ...

'' by the great seventeenth century Dutch cartographer

Joan Blaeu Joan Blaeu (; 23 September 1596 – 21 December 1673), also called Johannes Blaeu, was a Dutch cartographer and the official cartographer of the Dutch East India Company. Blaeu is most notable for his map published in 1648, which was the fir ...

Reviews

Stories within stories: A review of Tahir Shah’s ‘Scorpion Soup’
in The Toronto Review of Books.

in Bookfabulous blog.

in Mystical Faction blog. * in The Uncustomary book review.

in What Nikki reads.

References

Books by Tahir Shah 2010 short stories {{2010s-story-collection-stub