With her debut novel, Alif the Unseen, G. Willow Wilson announced herself as a powerful new voice in the realm of speculative fiction. With her new novel, The Bird King, she has cemented her place as one of the brightest lights of fantasy storytelling.

Granada, the last Muslim emirate in Spain, is nearing the end of its existence, as the Spanish crown rises and the Inquisition comes with it. In this turbulent time, Wilson introduces us to Fatima, a concubine to the sultan, and her cherished friend Hassan, a mapmaker with a strange gift. Hassan can draw maps of places he's never seen, and sometimes even alters the landscape around him to carve new paths. When a representative of the Spanish government visits and brands Hassan a sorcerer and sinner, Fatima feels compelled to save her friend, and the pair flees the relative comfort of court for the unknown. Guided by a resourceful and witty jinn, the pair ventures out into the world, buoyed by little more than faith and a story they've told to each other about a mythic bird king.

Wilson's tale unfolds with all the grace and swiftness of a classic magical adventure, with strange encounters and new lands waiting with each turn of the page. There's a familiarity, a lived-in quality, to the prose and sense of character that evokes an almost fairy-tale sensibility, but then Wilson digs deeper, into something as timeless as a myth but much more intimate. As it spreads out before the reader like a lavish tapestry, Wilson's story becomes a gorgeous, ambitious meditation on faith, platonic love, magic and even storytelling itself, with a trio of unforgettable personalities serving as its beating, endlessly vital heart.

The Bird King is a triumph—immersive in historical detail and yet, in many ways, it could have happened yesterday. Wilson has once again proven that she's one of the best fantasy writers working today, with a book that's just waiting for readers to get happily lost in its pages. 

 

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read a Q&A with G. Willow Wilson for The Bird King.

Wars may begin on the battlefield, but they end on a map. The Bird King is an exquisite fantasy about the end of Muslim sovereignty in the West, the power of desire to disrupt and transform, and how the privilege of naming can reshape the world.

Fatima was born to be a concubine. Beautiful and strong-tempered, she chafes at her role: "she was something the sultan owned, not dissimilar from the weary-looking pair of trained cheetahs that had come home with him from Genoa." Her solace is her friendship with Hassan, the royal mapmaker.

A slave and an artist are an odd duo in the palace of the last sultan of Granada: their intimacy is tolerated because they both possess unusual, valuable skills. Furthermore, the kingdom is starving under siege. The year is 1491 AD (896 AH), and three Western kingdoms have combined to claim the last Muslim emirate, Granada, as their own. In the final breaths of the emirate, Fatima and Hassan leave for a new world using magic: Hassan can not only draw maps, but also create imaginary places, using benevolent wizardry, ink, and paper.

The friends are assisted by a jinn, a spirit that lives in one of the palace's mongrel dogs. They escape by magic and luck, only to watch the world they know crumple. The newly created Spain brings an apocalypse of Western religion, custom, and law, including the Inquisition. Author G. Willow Wilson writes with a masterful control of perspective. The Bird King is a perfect novel, balancing universal themes and conflicting cultures with eloquently delivered landscape, character, and dialogue.

The Bird King is a unique fantasy that combines history with magic, creating an imaginary map of a world that has been lost to time.

Celebrated for her graphic novels and New York Times best-selling comic book series Ms. Marvel and World Fantasy Award winner for the debut novel Alif the Unseen, Wilson returns with a new novel set during the Spanish Inquisition. Fatima, a concubine in the royal court of Granada, the last emirate of Muslim Spain, is deeply worried about her close friend, palace mapmaker Hassan, who has a gift for drawing maps of places he has never seen and for shaping reality. That will put him in grave danger of being accused of sorcery when the newly formed Spanish monarchy comes to visit. What must Fatima sacrifice to make sure he will escape? For literary and fantasy readers alike and already buzzing.

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. Agent: Warren Frazier, John Hawkins & Assoc. (Mar.)

Gr 10 Up—Although she lives a luxurious life in the sultan's harem, the only thing Fatima craves is freedom. With the help of Vikram, a jinn who fades from man to dog, Fatima and Hassan, her best friend and magical cartographer, flee the palace when Hassan becomes a target of the Spanish Inquisition. Wilson weaves Arabic, Islam, and Islamic traditions to create an adult novel brimming with YA appeal—one that questions the meaning of time and reality.