Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: The City of Brass
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S): Chakraborty, Shannon A.
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.sachakraborty.com/
CITY: Queens
STATE: NY
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
Publicist: Kayleigh Webb, kayleigh.webb@harpercollins.com; agent: Jennifer Azantian, http://azantianlitagency.com/index.html.; married with a daughter
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born in NJ; married; children: one daughter.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
S.A. Chakraborty’s debut novel, The City of Brass, is a fantasy epic set in the Middle East during the eighteenth century. The tale serves as the first installment of the “Daevabad” series, and it draws on Islamic mythology and Middle Eastern fairy tales. Chakraborty was born and raised in New Jersey, and she converted to Islam when she was a teenager. Her research while studying abroad in Egypt led the author to write The City of Brass, but she told online Syfy Wire website interviewer Swapna Krishna that her novel is not meant to speak for all of Islam. “I don’t think anyone can adequately represent two billion people and if someone did, it certainly wouldn’t be a white convert from New Jersey whose heritage leans more Tony Soprano than Kamala Khan,” Chakraborty remarked. “I try to hold myself accountable to fellow Muslims first, and to showing respect and justice to a culture and history that I never forget isn’t mine despite how much I might enjoy it.”
Despite the potentially problematic nature of the novel and its author, most critics lauded The City of Brass. As D.R. Meredith put it in the online New York Journal of Books, “Spellbinding is an appropriate word to describe S.A. Chakraborty’s debut novel . . . Mesmerizing is another. Both adjectives reflect the magical, whimsical nature of the fantasy world Chakraborty creates.” Meredith went on to advise that “this world has magic, both white and black; monsters of tremendous size that fly through the air; djinns who can be loyal or deceitful as the occasion demands; ghouls who rise from the grave to devour the living; monsters who dwell in the water and kill both djinns and humans; flying carpets; shape-shifters; clan warfare; and a magical city hidden from human eyes.” The protagonist of the novel, Nahri, is in her twenties. She grew up on the streets of Cairo, and now she gets by as a fortuneteller and general con artist. Yet, Nahri has real psychic abilities; she can sense illness and even heal it. One of Nahri’s clients, a young girl, has been possessed by an ifrit. And when Nahri attempts to heal the girl, the ifrit nearly kills Nahri. A djinn named Dara rescues Nahri from the ifrit’s attack, and Dara reveals the source of Nahri’s special powers.
Chakraborty commented on her novel in a Kirkus Review Online interview, admitting: ” I did not expect to ever sell this book. I wrote it more for myself and my friends and people who loved reading science fiction and fantasy but . . . you open this book and it’s cool and you’re enjoying the story and then bam! There’s a cliche. There’s something offensive. As a Muslim, it’s very frustrating to love this genre. There’s only so long you can grin and bear it. I wanted people in my community to be able to read this and enjoy it.” Indeed, New York Times Online correspondent Suzanne Joinson announced that “the novel feels like a friendly hand held out across the world. . . . It reads like an invitation for readers from Baghdad to Fairbanks to meet across impossibly divergent worlds through the shared language and images of the fantastical.” According to a Kirkus Reviews columnist, The City of Brass is “a rich Middle Eastern fantasy . . . Best of all, the narrative feels rounded and complete yet poised to deliver still more. Highly impressive and exceptionally promising.” Sarah Hill, writing in School Library Journal, was also impressed, and she found that “Chakraborty’s compelling debut immerses readers in Middle Eastern folklore and an opulent desert setting while providing a rip-roaring adventure.”
In the words of Tor.com correspondent Mahvesh Murad, “The City of Brass is a well paced, entertaining and solidly researched (but never boring) historical fantasy that shifts the centre away from western folklore, with a strong denouement and a craftily set up epilogue that should segue well into the next installment of the trilogy. To most (western?) readers whose only experience of the djinn is Disney, The City of Brass is going to be a lush, entertaining fable.” Paul Di Filippo proffered further applause on the Locus Website, and he announced that “Chakraborty admirably keeps a number of plates spinning in her story. First, there comes Nahri’s arc, from downtrodden urchin to potential Queen of Daevabad. Her character remains consistent throughout, but expands into new intellectual and emotional areas as she matures and learns and experiences more.” Di Filippo added that the author “delivers the colorful grandeur and danger and decadence we associate with The Thousand and One Nights style of tales: massive city gates, ziggurat temples, giggling courtesans in a visitor’s bed as a hostly gift. . . . With its blend of royal politesse, djinnish magic, human loves and fears, and Middle Eastern Machiavellianism, The City of Brass offers pleasures worthy of Scheherazade.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, October 1, 2017, Biz Hyzy, review of The City of Brass.
BookPage, November, 2017, Mari Carlson, review of The City of Brass.
Kirkus Reviews, September 1, 2017, review of The City of Brass.
Publishers Weekly, October 2, 2017, review of The City of Brass.
School Library Journal, January, 2018, Sarah Hill, review of The City of Brass.
ONLINE
Kirkus Reviews Online, https://www.kirkusreviews.com/ (March 12, 2018), author interview
Locus, http://locusmag.com/ (November 29, 2017), Paul Di Filippo, review of The City of Brass.
New York Journal of Books, https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/ (November 14, 2017), D.R. Meredith, review of The City of Brass.
New York Times Online, https://www.nytimes.com/ (December 15, 2017), Suzanne Joinson, review of The City of Brass.
S.A. Chakraborty Website, https://www.sachakraborty.com (March 12, 2018).
Syfy Wire, http://www.syfy.com/ (March 12, 2018), Swapna Krishna, author interview.
Tor.com, https://www.tor.com/ (November 15, 2017), Mahvesh Murad, review of The City of Brass.
S. (Shannon) A. Chakraborty is a NY-based speculative fiction writer and history buff. Her debut, The City of Brass, is out now with Harper Voyager and is the first book in THE DAEVABAD TRILOGY, an epic fantasy set in the 18th century Middle East. She is an organizer with the Brooklyn Speculative Fiction Writers’ Group, about which more information - including membership - can be found here.
Originally (and proudly!) from New Jersey, S. A. currently resides in Queens with her husband and daughter. When not buried in books about Mughal portraiture and Omani history, she enjoys hiking, knitting, and recreating unnecessarily complicated, medieval meals for her family. You can find her online most frequently at Twitter (@SChakrabs) where she likes to ramble about history, politics, and Islamic art.
She is represented by Jennifer Azantian at Azantian Literary Agency.
**Note, despite the last name, I'm white and Muslim. I'm a convert to Islam; a faith and community that I've found great solace in and one that has significantly influenced my work. Though I keep some of this private, particularly how it relates to my family, I've talked about it in a couple interviews (here and here, in particular) if you're interested in reading more. - S.A.C.**
S.A. Chakraborty
Author of THE CITY OF BRASS
Interviewed by James McDonald on November 15, 2017
Historical fan fiction. That’s the phrase S. A. Chakraborty uses to situate her debut novel, The City of Brass, within the world of literature. “In Islam,” she explains, “we believe you have humans, angels, and all these other creatures, including the djinn, who are created from smoke or fire. They live alongside us, but you can't see them, and they live for hundreds and thousands of years. As a history lover, I thought that was just great. It would be so cool to watch the rise and fall of empires and nations—I tried to imagine how their civilization might have been built alongside ours.”
The City of Brass is a dazzling, enchanting, and utterly relevant story of an outwardly-appearing human’s entanglement in the fantastical world of Islamic mythology and lore. Nahri is living in Cairo at a time when Egypt is being manhandled, tugged between the powerful Ottamans and Napoleonic France, when she accidentally lands herself in the middle of a conflict stretching back to the time of Suleiman (or Solomon as most Western readers will know him best).
“People ask about the timing,” Chakraborty says, “and I thought that, if I set it in the early 18th century, I could have a reference to Napoleon in the first chapter, and then people might have a better idea of when this all takes place. But,” she adds, “it’s also the start, really, of Western colonialism in the Middle East. I wanted to set it at the dawn of a very new era for the region.”
While Chakraborty’s novel is classic fantasy—replete with magical healers, talking winged creatures, and ancient warriors with the power to bring stone statues to life—the themes that run like veins throughout the story are highly accessible, and that’s intentional.
Continue reading >
“So often you see the same exact problems and themes just repeated again and again and again” throughout history, Chakraborty says. “I had readers of this book telling me, ‘Oh it sounds like Iraq and the United States,’ or ‘Oh it sounds like Israel and Palestine,’ or ‘Oh it sounds like the Persians and the Arabs 1300 years ago.’ A lot of these issues relating to occupation—they just resound throughout history. People take over places. I wanted to look not at the black and the white, but the gray of what that does to a place, what that does to generations of people. And just to complicate things even further, cultures mesh and they also oppose each other. I wanted a book that showed the messiness of that. You could think you were very right in your people's actions, and then you see they have costs. Even if you think you're right, people died, so how can you come to terms with that as a person? I wanted to explore those issues and I wanted to show them in a realistic way.”
The seeds that would eventually blossom into The City of Brass were planted more than a decade ago. After converting to Islam in her teens, the New Jersey native spent time studying abroad in Cairo, where she heard stories of ceremonies used to expel djinn from human hosts. Her interest piqued, she began to explore that new side of Islam more deeply, not knowing at the time that all she learned would one day make its way into a novel. “I had decided when writing this,” she says, “that those were my rules: if I couldn't find a reference to something in a text or in a story from the region, then I wasn't using it.”
By the time she began seriously working on the book, about three or four years ago, however, her life had changed. “I was older, I was in a different Chakraborty Jacket place in my life, and I was a parent. I was living in Brooklyn and working with a youth organization through my mosque—and it became very disturbing to see, especially, how our young men are viewed in Western media. They're kids, they want to change the world, and they're burning with this desire to do good, and that's such a wonderful quality. But I’ve seen how that can be misconstrued while it's not misconstrued for teenagers of other communities. Our young people, our girls and our boys, should have representation, people that they can look up to as heroes.”
While Chakraborty’s novel, the first in a trilogy, will have broad appeal, she had a very specific audience in mind. “I really wrote it for my community,” she says. “I did not expect to ever sell this book. I wrote it more for myself and my friends and people who loved reading science fiction and fantasy but—and I've confronted this, and again I'm a privileged member of my community, a white convert—you open this book and it's cool and you're enjoying the story and then bam! There's a cliche. There’s something offensive. As a Muslim, it’s very frustrating to love this genre. There's only so long you can grin and bear it. I wanted people in my community to be able to read this and enjoy it.”
James McDonald is a British-trained historian and a New York–based writer.
S.A. CHAKRABORTY'S THE CITY OF BRASS STARTED OUT AS HISTORY FAN FICTION Contributed by
Swapna Krishna
skrishnasbooks
@skrishna
Nov 13, 2017
Share This Post
19
Shared
1
Comments
Watch LIVE now
Shannon Chakraborty didn’t want to be a writer when she grew up. “I wanted to be a historian, but I’ve been a bookworm since I was a kid,” she said. She originally wanted to be a historian, with a specialization in the Middle East. “That plan got a bit derailed for a variety of reasons, one of which was graduating in 2008 when the economy collapsed, so I figured I’d work while my husband went to medical school and keep my mind occupied with a little world-building/historical fan fiction,” she explains.
It’s that experience that led Chakraborty, who was born raised in New Jersey by blue-collar Catholic parents, to the seed that became The City of Brass. “It sprouted the day I set foot in the rare books library of the American University of Cairo,” she explains. There she lost herself in the stories and lore around her. “As a homesick, homework-laden, and rather wide-eyed new Muslim myself, I found in these stories a refuge; they spoke of a history that dazzled, a faith of breathtaking diversity in which my weird background was nothing new nor particularly noteworthy.”
Once she returned home and graduated college, Chakraborty embarked on a fan fiction project that combined the history she’d immersed herself in with an entirely new story — one that she never planned on showing anyone. The story was also informed by her own experiences learning how to be a Muslim. The heroes of the story — Nahri and Ali — were inspired by the people she met at the mosque. “Nahri and Ali — who would become the main protagonists of The City of Brass —began knocking in my mind,” she explained. “A sly heroine capable of saving herself, a dashing hero who’d break for the noon prayer. I wanted to write a story for us, about us, with the grandeur and magic of a summer blockbuster.“
The City of Brass follows a young woman, the aforementioned Nahri, who lives in eighteenth-century Cairo. Nahri has the power to heal others, but she doesn’t really consider it magic. It’s just another part of the repertoire of skills that allows her to survive on the streets of the bustling city. But when Nahri accidentally summons a djinn named Dara, she learns there is a world entirely separate from us — a magical place that Nahri must now risk her life to travel to. It’s a spellbinding novel (and the first in a planned trilogy) with an incredibly intricate backdrop, one that has secrets spilling off of each page.
Nahri might see a change in status over the course of The City of Brass, but her roots — a street dweller in 18th century Cairo — are always something that will be a part of her. “I wanted to find a balance between a starry-eyed dreamer and a ruthless pragmatist; someone who’s learned to temper her ambitions with realism and is largely okay with the moral ambiguities of doing what she needs to survive,” Chakraborty explains. “I also wanted to explore the idea of someone being alone in a world that so strongly revolves around family and community.”
The world-building was real treat for Chakraborty, considering she calls herself a history nerd. But how did she keep everything straight, considering the world she presents in The City of Brass is so complex? “I took a lot of notes for one, because I didn’t trust myself to remember everything. I also wrote out a fairly comprehensive (and probably embarrassingly long) history of the world, including the characters and the magic.” When she was confronted with writer’s block, Chakraborty changed her pace by writing short stories set within her world, but at a different time and place. It helped navigate through frustrations while also fleshing out the corners of this world.
The novel is full of fascinating characters and locations, but Chakraborty is very aware of her status when it comes to representation of Muslim characters. “I don’t think anyone can adequately represent two billion people and if someone did, it certainly wouldn’t be a white convert from New Jersey whose heritage leans more Tony Soprano than Kamala Khan,” she says matter-of-factly. “I try to hold myself accountable to fellow Muslims first, and to showing respect and justice to a culture and history that I never forget isn’t mine despite how much I might enjoy it.”
The key, to Chakraborty, is lifting up other Muslim voices to ensure that representation exists, and to understand that as a white Muslim, she enjoys a certain privilege that others of her religion don’t have. “I’m very aware of the amount of privilege this gives me and try to act accordingly. Personally, I think this is best achieved by learning when to sit and pass the mic so that others may speak—and actively finding ways to support them.”
But this doesn’t just extend to highlighting other voices. “There are some stories and themes that I don’t believe I’m meant to write—not because of some arbitrary rule or misconstrued idea of censorship—but because I’d prefer to hear what those more affected have to say rather than offering the newest white take,” she explains. “I am routinely humbled by the experience and history of people of color in my community—they are the vast, vast majority. It’s not an embarrassment to fear being called out for a mistake, it’s a way to learn and grow.”
THE CITY OF BRASS
Mari Carlson
BookPage.
(Nov. 2017): p36.
COPYRIGHT 2017 Book
3/4/2018 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1520195417209 2/6
Chakraborty ends the novel without a simple resolution, which will no doubt lead deftly into the next book
in this planned trilogy about a marvelous civilization built on strategy and tenuous allegiances, at the helm
of which stand courageous and cunning heroines such as Nahri and brilliant, fierce heroes like Dara and Ali.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Carlson, Mari. "THE CITY OF BRASS." BookPage, Nov. 2017, p. 36. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A511212765/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=b287f31e.
Accessed 4 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A511212765
3/4/2018 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1520195417209 3/6
The City of Brass
Publishers Weekly.
264.40 (Oct. 2, 2017): p123.
COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
The City of Brass
S.A. Chakraborty. Harper Voyager, $25.99
(544p) ISBN 978-0-06-267810-2
The familiar fantasy theme of a young person learning of a hidden supernatural legacy is given new life in
this promising debut novel, set in late-18th-century Egypt. Twenty-something Nahri, who has the ability to
sense illness in others and to heal some ailments, supports herself as a fortuneteller and con artist in Cairo.
Her routine, if precarious, existence, is shattered when a girl she is trying to help is possessed by an ifrit.
Nahri only avoids being killed through the intervention of Dara, a djinn, who reveals that Nahri is from a
family of magical healers. Chakraborty combines the plot's many surprises with vivid prose ("The cemetery
ran along the city's eastern edge, a spine of crumbling bones and rotting tissue where everyone from Cairo's
founders to its addicts were buried"), and leavens the action with wry humor. There is enough material here-a
feisty, independent lead searching for answers, reminiscent of Star Wars's Rey, and a richly imagined
alternate world--to support a potential series. Agent: Jennifer Azantian, Azantian Literary. (Nov.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"The City of Brass." Publishers Weekly, 2 Oct. 2017, p. 123. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A509728449/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=72eb8b85.
Accessed 4 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A509728449
3/4/2018 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1520195417209 4/6
The City of Brass
Biz Hyzy
Booklist.
114.3 (Oct. 1, 2017): p37.
COPYRIGHT 2017 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
The City of Brass. By S. A. Chakraborty. Nov. 2017. 544p. Harper Voyager, $25.99 (9780062678102).
Nahri magically heals the sick and instantaneously learns foreign languages, abilities she uses to con Cairo's
elite. During one ruse, she accidentally contacts an evil ifrit, and suddenly a smoking hot daeva (he literally
emanates smoke and radiates heat) is flying Nahri to Daevabad, claiming she's the last of her race.
Meanwhile, in Daevabad, tensions escalate between the daevas (pureblood djinn) and shafits (half-blood
djinn). Prince Ali, a shafit sympathizer, struggles between pledging loyalty to his royal family or to his
heartfelt cause. Chakraborty's debut launches into full speed when Ali and Nahri meet. Matched in wits and
candidness, they bicker at first, eventually evolving into unlikely allies. Through them, Chakraborty
explores timeless issues: Does birth or experience determine a person's nature? How does one realistically
help a suppressed group achieve equality? Vibrant djinn lore further complicates these open-ended
questions. Vivid descriptions--brass buildings, fine fabrics, spicy smells--percolate the lush prose, and a
final twist leaves room for a sequel. Recommend this scintillating, Middle Eastern fantasy to fans of
thoughtful, mystical adventures.--Biz Hyzy
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Hyzy, Biz. "The City of Brass." Booklist, 1 Oct. 2017, p. 37. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A510653801/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=056512e7.
Accessed 4 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A510653801
3/4/2018 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1520195417209 5/6
Chakraborty, S.A.: THE CITY OF
BRASS
Kirkus Reviews.
(Sept. 1, 2017):
COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Chakraborty, S.A. THE CITY OF BRASS Harper Voyager (Adult Fiction) $25.99 11, 14 ISBN: 978-0-06-
267810-2
A rich Middle Eastern fantasy, the first of a trilogy: Chakraborty's intriguing debut.On the streets of 18thcentury
Cairo, young Nahri--she has a real talent for medicine but lacks the wherewithal to acquire proper
training--makes a living swindling Ottoman nobles by pretending to wield supernatural powers she doesn't
believe in. Then, during a supposed exorcism, she somehow summons a mysterious djinn warrior named
Dara, whose magic is both real and incomprehensibly powerful. Dara insists that Nahri is no longer safe--
evil djinn threaten her life, so he must convey her to Daevabad, a legendary eastern city protected by
impervious magical brass walls. During the hair-raising journey by flying carpet, Nahri meets spirits and
monsters and develops feelings for Dara, a deeply conflicted being with a long, tangled past. At Daevabad
she's astonished to learn that she's the daughter of a legendary healer of the Nahid family. All the more
surprising, then, that King Ghassan, whose ancestor overthrew the ruling Nahid Council and stole
Suleiman's seal, which nullifies magic, welcomes her. With Ghassan's younger son, Prince Ali, Nahri
becomes immersed in the city's deeply divisive (and not infrequently confusing) religious, political, and
racial tensions. Meanwhile, Dara's emerging history and personality grow more and more bewildering and
ambiguous. Against this syncretic yet nonderivative and totally credible backdrop, Chakraborty has
constructed a compelling yarn of personal ambition, power politics, racial and religious tensions, strange
magics, and terrifying creatures, culminating in a cataclysmic showdown that few readers will anticipate.
The expected first-novel flaws--a few character inconsistencies, plot swirls that peter out, the odd patch
where the author assumes facts not in evidence--matter little. Best of all, the narrative feels rounded and
complete yet poised to deliver still more. Highly impressive and exceptionally promising.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Chakraborty, S.A.: THE CITY OF BRASS." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Sept. 2017. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A502192277/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=135a6cfd.
Accessed 4 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A502192277
3/4/2018 General OneFile - Saved Articles
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/marklist.do?actionCmd=GET_MARK_LIST&userGroupName=schlager&inPS=true&prodId=ITOF&ts=1520195417209 6/6
CHAKRABORTY, S. A. The City of
Brass
Sarah Hill
School Library Journal.
64.1 (Jan. 2018): p92+.
COPYRIGHT 2018 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No
redistribution permitted.
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/
Full Text:
* CHAKRABORTY, S. A. The City of Brass. 531p. (Daevabad Trilogy: Bk. 1). Harper Voyager. Nov. 2017.
Tr $25.99. ISBN 9780062678102.
Nahri, a common Cairo thief who can sense sickness in others and sometimes heal them, is thrust into a
magical world when she accidentally summons a powerful djinn. The handsome Dara insists that he escort
Nahri to the magical hidden Daevabad, the City of Brass, where Nahri will be protected by Prince Ali's
family, who have the power of Suleiman's seal. Never sure whom to trust, Nahri must rely on her street
smarts to survive the dangers of the beguiling city and the duplicitous natures of those who surround her.
Chakraborty's compelling debut immerses readers in Middle Eastern folklore and an opulent desert setting
while providing a rip-roaring adventure that will please even those who don't read fantasy. Though Nahri is
in her early 20s, young adults will recognize themselves in her. The other narrator, Prince Ali, is an 18-yearold
second son who doubts the current class structure of his kingdom. Chakraborty's meticulous research
about Middle Eastern lore is evident, but readers won't be bogged down by excessive details. VERDICT A
must-purchase fantasy for all libraries serving young adults-Sarah Hill, Lake Land College, Mattoon, IL
KEY: * Excellent in relation to other titles on the same subject or in the same genre | Tr Hardcover trade
binding | lib. ed. Publisher's library binding | Board Board book | pap. Paperback | e eBook original | BL
Bilingual | POP Popular Picks
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Hill, Sarah. "CHAKRABORTY, S. A. The City of Brass." School Library Journal, Jan. 2018, p. 92+.
General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A521876255/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=7084de27. Accessed 4 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A521876255
Mysteries Unfold in a Land of
Minarets and Magic Carpets
By SUZANNE JOINSON DEC. 15, 2017
THE CITY OF BRASS
By S. A. Chakraborty
532 pp. HarperVoyager / HarperCollins. $25.99.
S. A. Chakraborty’s novel, the first of a projected trilogy, opens with a veiled
woman fortunetelling in what appears to be 18th-century Cairo. We quickly learn
that Nahri earns her money as a thief and a leader of zars (rituals for the exorcism of
bad spirits), and speak
3/4/2018 Mysteries Unfold in a Land of Minarets and Magic Carpets - The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/15/books/review/city-of-brass-s-a-chakraborty.html 2/3
extinct. A birdlike creature then explains that Nahri is in danger and that her
handsome protector must take her away to the city of Daevabad. Thus their
adventure begins, complete with snowy plains, forbidding mountain ranges and
fierce confrontations.
The city’s name, Daevabad, with its Persian suffix of –abad, makes reference to
exotic-sounding cities like Islamabad or Hyderabad and signals what comes next:
the sound of the call to prayer, views of citadels and minarets, the bustle of grand
bazaars. To Nahri, who sees “a man pass by with an enormous python settled over
his shoulders,” the people of the city look “wild.” Its streets are full of strollers in
glowing robes wearing headdresses of glittering stones; there are even shape-shifters
among them. Chakraborty doesn’t hold back on the Eastern glitz.
The Muslim world is no stranger to speculative fiction, though that label
wouldn’t be used there. Islamic folklore and narratives are full of flying machines,
impossible journeys, skewed time frames and stories that illuminate cultural or
scientific theories. It’s clear that Chakraborty has great fun alluding to these tales,
though in storytelling terms “The City of Brass” is standard, fast-paced fantasy fare.
On the journey, Nahri gains access to Dara’s memories and figures out that he’s a
slave, even as her personal trajectory involves explorations of her own identity. Most
enjoyable is the gusto with which everything is thrown into her story, from
massacres to zombies to djinns. If there are stereotypes, they’re consciously
acknowledged and mischievously inhabited.
At the moment, speculative fiction has an exciting relationship with protest
fiction and feminist narratives, and while “The City of Brass” doesn’t blow away
cultural notions of difference or reconfigure the male-female divide, it does exploit
the genre’s penchant for inclusion. In fact, the novel feels like a friendly hand held
out across the world. (I hope very much that it will be translated into Arabic and
Farsi.) It reads like an invitation for readers from Baghdad to Fairbanks to meet
across impossibly divergent worlds through the shared language and images of the
fantastical.
Suzanne Joinson’s most recent novel is “The Photographer’s Wife.”
3/4/2018 Mysteries Unfold in a Land of Minarets and Magic Carpets - The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/15/books/review/city-of-brass-s-a-chakraborty.html 3/3
Follow New York Times Books on Facebook and Twitter (@nytimesbooks), and sign up
for our newsletter.
A version of this review appears in print on December 17, 2017, on Page BR9 of the Sunday Book
Review with the headline: Magic Carpet Ride.
BOOK REVIEWS
Of Djinns & Things: The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty
Mahvesh Murad
Wed Nov 15, 2017 2:00pm 1 comment 1 Favorite [+]
A young hustler on the streets of 18th Century Cairo, Nahri lives by her wits and has always done so alone, using certain special abilities that help her get by. She can, most of the time, tell if someone is sick, or what ails them. She has “yet to come upon a language she didn’t immediately understand,” can sometimes help those who are unwell, and seems to be able to heal quickly herself. Nahri uses her strange abilities to take what she can from whom she can, trying to build up a little store of cash so she may one day train to be a real healer.
But one ordinary day, what should be a run of the mill fake exorcism ends up going horribly wrong when the young girl Nahri is pretending to help turns out to be actually possessed by a djinn—an ifrit who recognises something special in Nahri.
In attempting her daily hustle, Nahri manages to spike the interest of the evil ifrit, and also calls forth another ancient djinn, the great Afshin warrior Dara, protector to some, scourge to others. Dara is entirely uncertain how Nahri has managed to call him, but immediately sees that she is no ordinary girl—half djinn, perhaps, but not an average djinn-human either. In an attempt to keep Nahri safe from the ifrit who are hunting her in Cairo, Dara insists she come with him to the great djinn city of Daevabad, where she may be safe though he himself may not be welcomed.
BUY IT NOW
Upon reaching the city, Nahri finds out that she is the last in the line of Nahids, the great healers of the djinn races and previous rulers of the City of Brass. She is suddenly propelled into complicated djinn politics, having to learn to manipulate the court and the king, as he attempts to manipulate her and her potential powers. As an outsider, no matter what her lineage may be, Nahri remains the reader’s point of view into this alternate parallel world. From her perspective we see the complicated djinn universe, its otherness and its injustices and glories. She is quick to point out the ways in which Daevabad is lacking, the ways in which it could be better, and to appreciate all its amazements, but she is still to learn of the long and turbulent history of the djinn tribes.
Daevabad and its surroundings are home to a variety of djinn races, which can get a bit confusing if you don’t firmly place in your head who is from what family and/or race. The worldbuilding is decent and the narrative is plotted deftly enough for it to be just very readable regardless of whether a reader is completely certain which clan someone’s mother was from, or what their historical allegiances were. The names given to various sorts of djinn are used freely (there’s a glossary in the back for those who want to double-check), and it can be hard to recall relationships between the various tribes, though not enough to hamper the sheer enjoyable readability of the writing.
Ottoman court politics are an inspiration for a narrative deeply rooted in Islamic mythology in the Middle East. The story of Sulaiman’s seal, and the power it had over djinns is central to The City of Brass. The forced slavery of djinns and all that came with enslaving an entire race to carry out the abhorrent crimes of their masters are inherent to who Dara is, and so casts a shadow over his relationship with Nahri and indeed, over his presence in Daevabad itself. In turn, Nahri, as the sole heir apparent of a powerful race of djinn healers, must contend with having to acquiesce to a king who is the descendant of those who took control of the city from her ancestors.
Chakarborty doesn’t shy away from the usual sorts of djinn cliches—there is plenty of conjuring of fire, a flying carpet, legendary flaming double bladed swords, fierce creatures belonging to every element, harems of beautiful female djinns dancing as they make flowers bloom in air, and even objects that hold the souls of djinn (think rings, if not lamps). But there’s also the strange, tense slave-master dynamic very much present in Daevabad, even though Sulaiman has been long gone. Genocide, racial discrimination, religious extremism, violence against the half-djinn, half-humans is all rife in Daevabad, and has been for centuries in some form or the other. Not so different from the human world, after all.
The story is told from Nahri’s perspective and from prince Alizayd’s: one the apparent descendant of a race that no longer exists yet was vital at one point to djinns, the other the second son of the current king, the prince who will never inherit the throne but wants desperately to make amends to those he thinks his people have wronged, without being disloyal to his family. Ancient tribal conflicts simmer just below the surface in Daevabad, with Alizayd’s father, the current king, attempting to manage a balance of sorts between the races as rebellions and insurgencies are brewing. Alizayd, however, appears to be fuelling some of the insurgents in their more violent attempts to improve their lives, though of course he does not know to what extent he is helping them at first. Nahri’s entry into his world throws him for a loop, when he is placed by his father to keep an eye on her.
Named for one of the stories in the Arabian Nights, The City of Brass is a well paced, entertaining and solidly researched (but never boring) historical fantasy that shifts the centre away from western folklore, with a strong denouement and a craftily set up epilogue that should segue well into the next installment of the trilogy. To most (western?) readers whose only experience of the djinn is Disney, The City of Brass is going to be a lush, entertaining fable inspired by Middle Eastern and Islamic folklore that has just enough familiar elements to not be considering worrying alien, and yet is exotic enough to thrill and entice and tick off diversity boxes in the right way. Within the dynamics of the various djinn tribes, though, are nestled valid socioeconomic politics for those who wish to read a little further past the surface of the narrative. To those readers familiar with the stories of Sulaiman and the djinn, with the Middle East and indeed with just that little bit of world history, it will be these politics that are intriguing, more so than the idea of creatures of fire living alongside us or the powers they possess and the adventures they have. This is actually a really clever approach—it’s not “other” enough to frighten more conservative readers (or publishers), and yet different enough to widen the scope of current popular fantasy.
The City of Brass is available from Harper Voyager.
Paul Di Filippo reviews The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty
November 29, 2017 Paul Di Filippo
The City of Brass, S.A. Chakraborty (Harper Voyager 978-0-06-267810-2, $25.99, 544pp, hardcover) November 2017
Even disregarding the familiar spectacle of publishers eagerly emulating the bestsellers of their rivals, we can notice that book people like mini-trends. So does the culture in general. No harm to the phenomenon, really, it’s just the way humans operate. Let something fresh become even modestly successful and suddenly the marketplace perceives a hitherto-unrecognized demand, and leaps to fill the new, or ostensibly new, niche.
Such seems to be the case with fantasies either set in the Middle East (or some avatar thereof) or deriving their tropes from that region. The flourishing of Matt Ruff’s Mirage, G. Willow Wilson’s Alif the Unseen, Saladin Ahmed’s Throne of the Crescent Moon, Salman Rushdie’s Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights, and Helene Wecker’s The Golem and the Jinni, among others, has opened up this sub-genre as a recognizable and publisher-approved category. Whereas once upon a time publishers might have balked at such a book, now they can acknowledge it as a good thing with a defined and likely audience.
The City of Brass, the debut novel by S. A. Chakraborty, falls squarely into this mini-surge, while still proving to be a non-derivative, honorable, well-wrought and entertaining creation. The author exhibits a delightful prose style, producing moments of gravitas, humor and pathos; a vivid imagination; good narrative pacing; a sharp ear for dialogue; a solid grasp of history; and a keen eye for the natural world and mankind’s creations therein. As the first book in The Daevabad Trilogy, it bodes well for both the series and the author’s longer career.
Our venue is, at first, Cairo during the Napoleonic era. And our centering figure is a young woman, roughly twenty years old, named Nahri. She is a guttersnipe of sorts, but utterly smart and self-sufficient, however desperate her conditions. Currently she is getting by at a poverty level with an assortment of tricks: telling futures, practicing folk healing, a little cat burglary. She has no past, no family, and only a few friends of any degree. But Nahri also exhibits a few inexplicable talents: super-fast healing of her own body, an ability to instantly apprehend any new language; and so forth.
One day she is attempting an exorcism for money, thinking herself to be merely faking the ritual. Instead, she legitimately and forcefully summons up Dara, a fire elemental of the type known as a Daeva. Resentful of being interrupted, Dara hijacks Nahri away from all that is familiar. He is soon convinced of her innocence, but at the same time discovers that a bigger game is afoot. He recognizes Nahri to be a shafit, half-human, half-Daeva. Moreover, she seems to be the last representative of a famous line of healers, and hence potentially a person of some importance.
Before you can say “Open, sesame!” ghouls and ifrits are on the tails of the pair, and they are forced, one step ahead of pursuit, to flee Cairo for the only possible refuge: Daevabad, the stupendous, wonderful city hosting all the six tribes of djinns denominated by the legendary King Suleiman. Dara’s tribe is on the low end of the pecking order, for past sins (Dara himself fears what reception he will get upon returning after a long absence), while the Geziri clan currently rules the city, through the al Qahtani family.
This cues the reader up for a shift in narrative POV: our tale will now be alternately told through the perspective of Nahri and that of Ali, the youngest son of King Ghassan al Qahtani. (Ali’s brother, Muntadhir, is the dominating heir.) And so while we witness Nahri’s gradual education (and plunge into love for Dara), we also see the machinations and intrigue of the court, and the rivalries among the six tribes.
Eventually, of course, when Nahri reaches the city, her experiences overlay Ali’s and they are often onstage together. But the dual tracks persist, providing us useful contrasting vantages on events.
As she comes to inhabit her heritage more fully, Nahri finds she is at the nexus of several deadly plots and factions. And as Ali, himself a djinn, gets to know this half-human woman more closely, he begins to reassess the complicity and subservience he has always performed. Dara, meanwhile, pursues his own agenda. Finally, a sprawling supernatural climax, a kind of Clash of the Titans, sorts out winners and losers–but only in an unstable, temporary fashion that will develop further in subsequent volumes.
Chakraborty admirably keeps a number of plates spinning in her story. First, there comes Nahri’s arc, from downtrodden urchin to potential Queen of Daevabad. Her character remains consistent throughout, but expands into new intellectual and emotional areas as she matures and learns and experiences more. (One of the most charming riffs concerns her desire to shed her illiteracy and makes use of the “millions” of scrolls in the palace library.) And then there is the prospect of romance, with two suitors, Dara and Ali, contending against each other in classic romance novel fashion. There’s also a bit of the same kind of relations seen in C. J. Cherryh’s earliest novels, that of warrior pledged to a maiden to whom he dare not confess his love.
The journeys of Ali and Dara are handled equally well. Their contentious relationship allows Chakraborty to also explore the tribal histories and power plays of the various clans, and to enact games of court intrigue. The human-djinn dynamics are also explicated.
Chakraborty also displays great zest in populating her realm with exotic beings and with curious ailments for Nahri to contend with: “It was possible…to transform one’s hands into flowers, to be hexed with hallucinations, or to be turned into an apple…”
But above all she delivers the colorful grandeur and danger and decadence we associate with The Thousand and One Nights style of tales: massive city gates, ziggurat temples, giggling courtesans in a visitor’s bed as a hostly gift. When Nahri and Ali lift down a scroll and fail to defuse its protection, causing it to turn into a deadly giant snake, we might be watching Conan and Red Sonja at play.
With its blend of royal politesse, djinnish magic, human loves and fears, and Middle Eastern Machiavellianism, The City of Brass offers pleasures worthy of Scheherazade.
Paul Di Filippo has been writing professionally for over thirty years, and has published almost that number of books. He lives in Providence, RI, with his mate of an even greater number of years, Deborah Newton.
The City of Brass
Image of The City of Brass: A Novel (The Daevabad Trilogy)
Author(s):
S. A. Chakraborty
Release Date:
November 14, 2017
Publisher/Imprint:
Harper Voyager
Pages:
544
Buy on Amazon
Reviewed by:
D. R. Meredith
Spellbinding is an appropriate word to describe S. A. Chakraborty’s debut novel, The City of Brass. Mesmerizing is another. Both adjectives reflect the magical, whimsical nature of the fantasy world Chakraborty creates.
This world has magic, both white and black; monsters of tremendous size that fly through the air; djinns who can be loyal or deceitful as the occasion demands; ghouls who rise from the grave to devour the living; monsters who dwell in the water and kill both djinns and humans; flying carpets; shape-shifters; clan warfare; and a magical city hidden from human eyes.
If all the fantastic elements are not enough, there are the characters: first and foremost is Nahri, current fiction’s most likeable con artist, who makes her meager living on the streets of Cairo by palm reading, zars or ritual chants, and healing.
Nahri knows all her claims to powers beyond the ordinary are phony—except her powers of healing. Not only can she heal herself of series injuries such as broken bones, she also can diagnose her clients’ illnesses and heal them.
“Nahri could no more explain the way she healed and sensed illness than she could explain how her eyes and ears worked.”
One night Nahri is hired to perform a zar, a ceremony to cure a young girl of possession, of what kind of possession is immaterial since Nahri doesn’t believe in possession. However, she does appreciate “the basket of coins and free meal earned by the kodia, the woman who led the ceremony . . .”
Nahri sings some of zar in her native language, although she has no idea what language it was. She had never heard it spoken by anyone but herself. She inadvertently summons a warrior djinn although she is unaware of what she had done until she takes a shortcut home through one of Cairo’s cemeteries.
That’s when Dara, a djinn with extraordinary green eyes, and a slight odor of smoke, appears in a flash of light and is none too pleased about it. “Suleiman’s eye!” it roared. “I will kill whoever called me here!”
Dara recognizes Nahri as someone more than a Shafit, a half-human, half-djinn, while Nahri finds the sudden appearance of a real live djinn incomprehensible. She doesn’t believe in such things. However, he saves her from being devoured by ghouls suddenly springing from the graves around her.
Being rescued from flesh-eating ghouls by a green-eyed djinn with elongated ears and strangely luminous skin who also can command carpets to fly does not mean Nahri trusts Dara. He denies being a djinn, calling himself a Daeva. “Daeva who call themselves djinn have no respect for our people.”
Nahri has no idea what the difference between a Daeva and a djinn is, but decides Dara is in no mood to explain. On the contrary, he is more interest in Nahri’s personal history, of which she knows little, and not forthcoming about his own. He does believe that Nahri is a shafit member of the Nahids, a daeva family of healers.
Dara tells her she can’t go back to Cairo. “It’s against our law, and the ifrit are likely already tracking you. You wouldn’t last a day.”
The ifrit are seriously nasty creatures who are enemies of the djinn, but the ifrit are not the only dangers Nahri and Dana face. They are now in a fantastical world where rivers turn into serpents, giant birds have wizened faces and can speak, and hardly anything is what it seems.
Dara takes her to Daevabad, the legendary city of brass, once ruled by the Nahid family. Not only will she be safe there, but she will be welcomed as a healer even though the city is now ruled by King Ghassan ibn Khader al Qahtani, whose families defeated the Daeva clan and murdered most of Nahid.
Although King Ghassan’s clan reason for conquering the Nahid is that they were torturing and murdering the mixed blood shafit of Baevabad. But once more the shafit are being oppressed and killed, this time by King Ghassan.
Prince Ali, King Ghassan’s younger son, believes that all citizens of Daevabad should enjoy equal rights. His father disagrees. “. . . it’s time the mixed-bloods are shown their place.”
Ali, who secretly finances the Tanzeem, the underground organization of mixed-blood rebels, is caught between his loyalty to his father and his clan, and his devout beliefs in equal treatment for Daevabad’s citizens. There is also his distrust of his father’s Grand Wazir, Wajed, a member of the daeva clan. Ali doesn’t trust the daevas, but the daevas as a clan much trust the king’s clan either.
Dara and Nahri arrive in Daevabad as the simmering distrust and hatred between the purebloods of every clan and the shafits threaten’s to erupt. Then again there is the distrust between the various clans of purebloods. Add to that King Ghassan’s plan to use Nahri as a means to bind together the Daeva clan and his own, and the political ramifications of such an event only heightens Dara’s hatred for the king’s clan.
The City of Brass is a fantasy, and a superb one, but it is also an adventure that rivals the excitement of The Lord of the Rings. It is an understatement to say that it is fast-paced. One is slung from one life-threatening adventure to another with hardly time to draw breath between each.
Although some may criticize Chakraborty’s use of the vernacular rather than attempting to imitate some imagined exotic English, the use of modern language, including some slang, makes the novel accessible to more readers.
To those unfamiliar with Middle Eastern folklore and customs beyond Alladin and the Magic Lamp or A Thousand and One Nights, Chakraborty includes a glossary. Otherwise, enjoy this magical world.
D. R. Meredith is the author of fifteen mystery novels, two historical sagas, a TV novelization, several short stories, and innumerable book reviews.