The Bird King
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4.1 • 15 Ratings
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- $25.99
Publisher Description
From award-winning author G. Willow Wilson, The Bird King is an epic journey set during the reign of the last sultan in the Iberian peninsula at the height of the Spanish Inquisition.
G. Willow Wilson’s debut novel Alif the Unseen was an NPR and Washington Post Best Book of the Year, and it established her as a vital American Muslim literary voice. Now she delivers The Bird King, a stunning new novel that tells the story of Fatima, a concubine in the royal court of Granada, the last emirate of Muslim Spain, and her dearest friend Hassan, the palace mapmaker. Hassan has a secret—he can draw maps of places he’s never seen and bend the shape of reality. When representatives of the newly formed Spanish monarchy arrive to negotiate the sultan’s surrender, Fatima befriends one of the women, not realizing that she will see Hassan’s gift as sorcery and a threat to Christian Spanish rule. With their freedoms at stake, what will Fatima risk to save Hassan and escape the palace walls? As Fatima and Hassan traverse Spain with the help of a clever jinn to find safety, The Bird King asks us to consider what love is and the price of freedom at a time when the West and the Muslim world were not yet separate.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Wilson (Alif the Unseen) sets her swashbuckling second novel amid an epic clash between cultures on the Iberian peninsula during the Spanish Inquisition. Fatima, the most beautiful girl at the court of Al Andalus in Granada, is Sultan Abu Abdullah's favored concubine. But she loves only her friend Hassam, the palace mapmaker, who possesses an uncanny ability to conjure doors to whole new rooms or even whole new worlds. When the Spanish send a delegation to demand the surrender of the Alhambra from the sultan, they bring with them the Baronesa Luz. Invited to the harem to be entertained, Luz gains the confidence of Fatima, but after Hassam's gifts are carelessly revealed, Fatima discovers Luz is part of the Inquisition. When Luz condemns Hassam as a sorcerer, he and Fatima are forced to flee. They make one harrowing escape after another (and another) by land and sea, helped by the vampire-jinn Vikram (who takes the form of a dog); his fickle feline sister, Azalel; Gwennec the ill-fated monk; and various other fantastical entities. Fatima remains the hero throughout, her courage and loyalty the only attributes that can save them. Though marketed as literary fiction, this book is pure fantasy, and teen readers especially will relish suspending their disbelief as Fatima and Hassam careen from one violent fray to the next.
