Review: The City of Brass

The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Over the past year, I have read several impressive debut novels (Katherine Arden and Ruth Emmie Lang specifically come to mind) where authors have built unique and magical worlds in which the reader can lose themselves. S. A. Chakraborty joins this group with a novel that is mesmerizing and steeped in Arabic and Persian folklore. The City of Brass takes its title from a less well-known tale in A Thousand and One Nights/"The Arabian Nights". (You can read a quick synopsis of the story of the City of Brass, and the seal of Suleiman/Solomon in A Thousand and One Nights here.) As in The Arabian Nights, Chakraborty's City of Brass is set in a world of djinn, ifrits, marids, and daevas* - ancient Avestan/Persian creatures that were considered chaos-promoting and deemed false gods by the Zoroastrians. Here, we travel the paths of the legendary Silk Road and Spice Route, from the bazaars of Cairo to the foothills of the Hindu Kush, Ancient Persia and the legendary City of Brass, Daevabad.

(You find can a key to this map, its various locations and their relevance to the Daevabad Trilogy world here.)

Equal parts fantasy and political intrigue, the first book of The Daevabad trilogy gives us alternating chapters about two main characters, Nahri, a girl with a mysterious history, and Ali, a djinn prince, in a story arc that brings them steadily closer to meeting one another. The inscrutable daeva Dara, a third main character, who rescues and protects Nahri, provides a vivid and visceral presence and has a recent past as mysterious as Nahri's. Chakraborty manages to make what becomes a love triangle an enjoyable read and everyone knows how I loathe love triangles. Nahri's relationship with Dara, grounded in emotion versus that with Ali, grounded in intellectual companionship, forms one of many interesting elements of the book. The misfortunes of being an idealistic second son, and the political implications of racism and slavery figure prominently in this tale. After the rather stunning last few chapters, I am eagerly awaiting The Kingdom of Copper. Although...

"Be careful what you wish for..."




*These are not quite related to the Vedic devas of Indic culture.

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