Alif the Unseen

G. Willow Wilson

From Shelf: The 2013 Women's Prize for Fiction Longlist

Winner of the 2013 World Fantasy Award: a compelling and bewitching first novel, perfect for book groups, that mixes old world magic with modern adventure.

'I will tell you a story, but it comes with a warning; when you hear it, you will become someone else.'He calls himself Alif, a young man born in a Middle Eastern city that straddles the ancient and modern. When Alif comes into possession of a mysterious book entitled The Thousand and One Days, he discovers a door to another world - a world from a very different time, when old magic was in the ascendant and the djinn walked amongst us. Thus begins an adventure that takes him through the crumbling streets of a once-beautiful city, to uncover the long-forgotten mysteries of the Unseen. Alif is about to become a fugitive. And he is about to unleash a destructive power that will change everything and everyone - starting with Alif himself...