If you are interested in reading for The IWU Global Storytelling Project in your native language(s) please contact professor Carmela Ferradáns at cferrada@iwu.edu We are particularly interested in Native American languages and African languages that might be in danger of extinction.
Visitors to this site are free to listen to these recordings for their own enjoyment and to use them for educational purposes. If you share or adapt any of the content in this collection, we ask for attribution by the individual recommended citations and/or the project overall in accordance with the Attribution-ShareAlike CC license CC BY-SA.
The IWU Global Storytelling Project is supported in part by a grant from the Illinois Prairie Community Foundation (IPCF) and The Byron S. Tucci Endowment Fund. Thank you!
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Arabic: A Thousand and One Nights
unknown and Issam Nassar
The story is about a princess, Scheherazade, who tells bedtime stories to a king for a thousand and one nights. But every night, just as the story is getting exciting and intriguing she stops and the king, who is very curious, has to wait until the following night to find out what happens. The first story Scheherezade tells the king—which I read--is about a rich merchant who encounters a bad genie. The genie threatens to kill him but the merchant convinces him to give him time to go home, make arrangements to spend time with his family, which he does. Scheherezade ends the story that night just when it is time for the merchant to go back to the genie.
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Basque-Euskera: Txanogorritxu-Little Red Riding Hood
Jacob Grimm, Wilhelm Grimm, and Patxi Lascurain Ibarlucea
This version of Little Red follows Brothers Grimm’s story: both Little Red and Gramma get eaten by the big, bad wolf, but they are miraculously rescued by a huntsman or a woodcutter who open the wolf’s belly. This ending is more suitable for younger audiences than older versions with darker themes and more gruesome endings. The moral of the story is clear: children should obey their parents’ advice.
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Catalan: La Caputxeta Vermella-Little Red Riding Hood
Jacob Grimm, Wilhelm Grimm, and Montserrat Mir
This version of Little Red follows Brothers Grimm’s story: both Little Red and Gramma get eaten by the big, bad wolf, but they are miraculously rescued by a huntsman or a woodcutter who open the wolf’s belly. This ending is more suitable for younger audiences than older versions with darker themes and more gruesome endings. The moral of the story is clear: children should obey their parents’ advice.
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French: Le Petit Chaperon Rouge-Little Red Riding Hood
Charles Perrault and Molly Ramirez
This version of the classic Little Red Riding Hood follows the Charles Perrault 1697 story with an abrupt and gruesome ending, both Little Red and Gramma get eaten by the big bad wolf. The story has a clear and unequivocal moral: children should not talk to strangers.
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Galician: Adiós ríos, adiós fontes-Goodbye Rivers, Goodbye Fountains
Rosalía de Castro and Carmela Ferradáns
This is a well-known poem by Galician writer Rosalía de Castro (Santiago de Compostela, 1837-Padrón, 1835). The speaker of the poem says goodbye to his homeland, his house, his loved one, before migrating to Latin America. The poetry collection Cantares Gallegos [Galician Songs] was published in Vigo on May 17th, 1863. On the one hundred anniversary of this publication, the Real Academia Gallega [Royal Galician Academy] instituted May 17th as the Dia das letras galegas [Day of Galician Letters] to celebrate literature written in Galician. Rosalía de Castro was the first writer to be honored on May 17th, 1963.