[sun surfer]

I just read samples (the same prologue of the two brother kings) from both the Dawood and the Haddawy. Of this section, the Dawood is shorter on detail and more concise, and the language clearer and plainer. The Haddawy seems almost deliberately hazier, the language more convoluted and it takes about twice as long to convey the same info.

I was leaning toward the Dawood beforehand however now I'm leaning toward the Haddawy. I like the greater description (even if it will be at the expense of less overall stories) and I especially like that it's more... spellbinding. I feel like the haziness and convolutions work to give it an alluring air of bygone exotic foreignness appropriate to these tales.

Both the Haddawy volumes are available as ebooks but separately and they end up together being twice as much as the Dawood in the U. S. (Haddawy $20 total versus $10 for Dawood). And together they have about 300 more pages than the Dawood which I don't necessarily want because I'd like to try to read an entire version. But I think in the end the translation I like best is going to be my deciding factor, though I think both translations are good choices so I'll sleep on it first. Just wanted to post this info right away for anyone still deciding on a version.

ETA- The Dawood version of the two kings prologue is easy to sample on Amazon but the Haddawy version is harder. I didn't try much but on the U.S. Amazon site, for Haddawy you can read the tiny Kindle version sample then click over to its pbook sample to continue (minus a random page or two).