The Winged Histories

Product Description

Four women, soldier, scholar, poet, and socialite are caught up on different sides of a violent rebellion. As war erupts and their families are torn apart, they fear they may disappear into the unwritten pages of history. Using the sword and the pen, the body and the voice, they struggle not just to survive, but to make history.
Here is the much-anticipated companion novel to Sofia Samatar’s award-winning debut, A Stranger in Olondria. The Winged Histories is the saga of an empire―and a family: their friendships, their enduring love, their arcane and deadly secrets. Samatar asks who makes history, who endures it, and how the turbulence of historical change sweeps over every aspect of a life and over everyone, no matter whether or not they choose to seek it out.

Praise for The Winged Histories:
“Like an alchemist, Sofia Samatar spins golden landscapes and dazzling sentences…. a fantasy novel for those who take their sentences with the same slow, unfolding beauty as a cup of jasmine tea, and for adventurers like Tav, who are willing to charge ahead into the unknown.”—Shelf Awareness (starred review)
“A highly recommended indulgence.”—N.K. Jemisin, New York Times Book Review
“Above all, it’s a story about love—the terrible love that tears lives apart. Doomed love; impossible love; love that requires a rewriting of the rules, be it for a country, a person, or a story.”—Jenn Northington, Tor.com
“An imaginative, poetic, and dark meditation on how history gets made.”—Hello Beautiful

Review

NPR Best Books of the year · Locus Award finalist
Reviews
“All of it is harrowing ― and written in such heart-stoppingly beautiful language there’s a good chance readers will ignore the plot and spend a few hours just chewing on the words, slowly, to draw out the flavor. Then they’ll need to read it again. Fortunately, this is a short book; also fortunately, there’s a lot of novel packed into relatively few pages. A highly recommended indulgence.” ― N. K. Jemisin, New York Times Book Review
“Like an alchemist, Sofia Samatar spins golden landscapes and dazzling sentences. . . . The Winged Histories is a fantasy novel for those who take their sentences with the same slow, unfolding beauty as a cup of jasmine tea, and for adventurers like Tav, who are willing to charge ahead into the unknown.” ― Shelf Awareness (starred review)
“It is dazzlingly beautiful and as close to perfect as a reader can hope. . . . The Winged Histories is one of the finest fantasy novels of 2016, or any year.” ― Jane Franklin, Rain Taxi
“Samatar’s second novel’s lyrical and gorgeous prose explores the lives of four very different women caught up in the brutality of war.” ― Recommendations from the Booksmith in the San Francisco Chronicle
“The lush syntax is often so spellbinding that entire paragraphs demand an immediate re-read, and the plot map follows tributaries as often as the river itself. Rhythmically, it varies between traditional fantasy fiction and a sort of poetic prose. Samatar’s women are realistically flawed, and the storylines have intentionally frayed edges and visible brutalities and, of course, monsters and magic. Based on just a first read of this lyrical work, Samatar’s fascination with language and the human condition is very apparent, and perhaps even contagious. Excerpts of in-world books and songs, plus an intricate family tree and glossary, help transform this fantasy into a world so real that when the book ends, Olondria becomes a red balloon, ever-present but just out of reach. For every moment of power and adrenaline, an equally crushing or lovely or strange occurrence is offered. But then, such is war, and life.” ― Jessi Cape, Austin Chronicle
“Throughout it all, Samatar ponders weighty questions. ‘What is the difference between a king and a monster?’ Tialon asks; ‘What is music?’ wonders Seren. But Histories isn’t a book about easy answers, any more than it’s driven by plot. It’s circuitous and hypnotic, told throug