The Nights
'Soon the night will come, and to save my life, I must tell another story.'
So begins the famous tale of Scheherazade, kidnapped from her parent’s home in the desert by the Sultan’s soldiers, and brought to his palace in the city. Every night she must invent a new story — 'for his amusement: for my salvation' — so that she can live to see another dawn. Tormented by a feverish sexuality, Scheherazade tells stories with both words and skin. But after nearly a thousand nights in his palace, Scheherazade realises that the greatest threat to her life may not come from the Sultan himself.
The Nights is a passionate fairy tale about art, love, sex and power. It speaks to the creative struggle that all artists endure: the endless search for authenticity, inspiration and time.
‘Lush, opulent and dripping with sensuality, this novella will take you on a journey through 1001 nights that you’d wish would never end.’ — Paris Rosemont, Banana Girl
Helen Hopcroft is a Tasmanian artist and writer based in Maitland. She studied Painting at the Royal College of Art and Creative Writing at the University of Newcastle. Helen is writing a memoir - My Year as a Fairy Tale - about a year she spent dressed as Marie Antoinette.
