The Bird King, G. Willow Wilson
The Bird King, G. Willow Wilson
2 Rating(s)
List: $42.99 | Sale: $30.10
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The Bird King

Author: G. Willow Wilson

Narrator: Elmira Rahim

Unabridged: 14 hr 8 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/12/2019


Synopsis

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.

About G. Willow Wilson

G. Willow Wilson is the author of the critically acclaimed novel, Alif the Unseen, which won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 2013; the memoir, The Butterfly Mosque; the graphic novels Cairo, Air, and Vixen; and the celebrated comic book series Ms. Marvel.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Bradley on November 19, 2018

Set in 1491 Grenada, most of this novel reads like a devoted historical novel where the Muslim world is mixed with the Christian at a time when the Spanish Inquisition is running strong and the last Emirate is about to fall. Fatima, the last concubine, and her friend Hassan, a mapmaker with the abili......more

Goodreads review by Michael on March 23, 2019

There are few recent books that I have looked forward to reading as much as I looked forward to reading The Bird King. And there are even fewer books that I have anticipated that have been as disappointing to me as this one was. It was not a complete disaster. There are redeeming qualities. But ther......more

Goodreads review by Mel (Epic Reading) on November 18, 2019

A few lulls but for the most part an excellent read. It felt like I was reading a Guy Gavriel Kay book; which is a huge compliment! There is a lot of Muslim culture here that most Westerners are not likely to be familiar with. I loved learning about the culture and seeing the world from the Muslim v......more