The City of Brass
Nahri has survived on the streets of eighteenth-century Cairo by running confidence games, reading palms, and occasionally performing zars she does not believe in. She is halfway through one such ceremony when she accidentally summons Dara, a brooding, ancient warrior who insists that the djinn are real, that she is one of them, and that she is urgently wanted in the legendary city of Daevabad. What follows is a long, dangerous journey across a desert alive with ifrits and old grudges, into a glittering capital where six djinn tribes circle each other with centuries of unfinished war. S.A. Chakraborty's debut in the Daevabad trilogy pairs richly researched Islamic folklore with palace politics and a slow-burn romance, launching one of the most celebrated recent series in epic fantasy.
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What you might want to know about The City of Brass
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
First in the Daevabad trilogy. Eighteenth-century Cairo street thief Nahri tries a fake healing ceremony for a girl and accidentally summons a djinn warrior named Dara, who tells her she is the last of a line of healers.
S.A. Chakraborty's Daevabad Trilogy has three main books: The City of Brass, The Kingdom of Copper, and The Empire of Gold. A follow-up novel, The River of Silver, collects related novellas.
No. The City of Brass is adult fantasy. The complex political intrigue, multilingual world-building, and mature themes mark it as adult, though some retailers have shelved it as YA crossover.
The City of Brass was written by S.A. Chakraborty, published in 2017.
The City of Brass is 544 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The City of Brass takes most readers 8 to 12 hours to finish.
The City of Brass is a standalone novel by S.A. Chakraborty, not part of a series.
The City of Brass is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
