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Antoine Galland
Image: Unknown author, Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Antoine Galland

أنطوان غالان

Notable figure 1646–1715 · Source: Najib al-Aqiqi, al-Mustashriqun, 3rd ed. (Cairo: Dar al-Maʿarif, 1964), vol. 1, p. 174; Yahya Murad, Muʿjam asmaʾ al-mustashriqin, p. 386 · Second source: Bibliothèque nationale de France, authority record: Galland, Antoine (1646-1715)

From France; worked in Türkiye

Field: Literature and poetry

Affiliation

First European translator of the Thousand and One Nights

Biography

Born in Rollot, he studied Arabic at the Collège royal in Paris, then went with the French ambassador to Constantinople (1670) to collect manuscripts and inscriptions, and later travelled in the East at his own expense. He published a collection of sayings of the Eastern peoples (1694) and from 1704 translated the Thousand and One Nights into French, the first translation of it in Europe; in 1709 he was appointed professor of Arabic at the Collège royal.