Hanna Diyab

Antun Yusuf Hanna Diyab (Arabic: اَنْطون يوسُف حَنّا دِياب, romanized: Anṭūn Yūsuf Ḥannā Diyāb; born circa 1688) was a Syrian Maronite writer and storyteller.

He originated the best-known versions of the tales of Aladdin and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves which have been added to the One Thousand and One Nights since French orientalist Antoine Galland translated and included them, after which they soon became popular across the West.

It survives as Vatican Library MS Sbath 254, though the first few pages are missing, and its lively narrative has been described as picaresque,[7] and a valuable example of the colloquial, eighteenth-century Middle Arabic of Aleppo, influenced by Aramaic and Turkish.

[10] Leaving Aleppo in February 1707, they visited Egypt, Tripoli, Tunisia, Corsica, Livorno, Genoa and Marseille before reaching Paris early in 1708, where Diyab's stay culminated with his reception at Versailles by the Louis XIV.

[17] In his postscript to the German edition of Diyab's travelogue, the French historian Bernard Heyberger calls it "a unique document thanks to its narrative qualities, rich observations, and the familiarity he establishes with the reader through the description of his impressions and feelings."

Further, he emphasizes Diyab's personal style, which is characterized by the lively speech of the oriental narrator typical for the popular gatherings in coffeehouses and gardens of Aleppo.

With reference to Diyab's humble social origins, his self-confidence and his portrayal of European people and events, the travelogue is, according to Heyberger, an early example in Syrian literature of the perspective "from the bottom up, [from] the point of view of the subaltern".