Annotated City of Brass

## Description

An annotated version of The City of Brass was included in the November 2017 PageHabit Fantasy subscription box. Among other items, the box included a letter written by the author, S.A. Chakraborty, and a US hardcover edition of The City of Brass with ten post-it note annotations inside. The annotations mainly focus on historical references made in the book, and some personal anecdotes and character hints.

As this was an item made exclusively for the PageHabit subscription box, there are several copies of this annotated book in existence.

## Letter from the author

"Hello, dear reader!
I'm S.A. Chakraborty, and I'm delighted that my debut, The City of Brass, is being included in this month's box! The City of Brass is the first book in The Daevabad Trilogy, a historical fantasy set in the 18th century Middle East.
I wrote The City of Brass essentially as a love letter/world-building exercise to the medieval Islamic world. Before I had dreams of being a writer, I wanted to be a history professor and so I started this quirky, little book (that soon became quite big!) inspired by the places and people I loved reading about... with magic, of course. I dreamt of a hidden city whose magical inhabitants had watched the rise and fall of countless human civilizations, simultaneously seduced and repulsed by such inferior creatures. And yet for all the magic, I wanted the politics to feel real for the reader to ache along with Nahri, Ali, and Dara.
I hope by the end that you feel similarly. Welcome to Daevabad... may the fires burn brightly for you!
-S.A. Chakraborty"

## Annotated Post-it Notes

Chapter 2, pg 24: "I first visited El Arafa with a professor from the American University of Cairo -- and she shared this opinion regarding the Ottomans and the cemetery!"Chapter 4, pg 58: "In a nod to Nahri, I modeled this mosque after the famed Ibn Tulun one in Cairo. -- The ishtas is my own particular wish!"Chapter 5, pg 87: "Hierapolis is a real place... with this particular history! Known as Manbij today, in Dara's time it would have been a center for the worship of Atargatis, an ancient Syrian goddess."Chapter 7, pg 141: "The City of Brass" is partly inspired by a tale with the same name in 1001 Nights in which a band of explorers comes upon the dead ruins of an ancient civilization -- learning a lesson in the eventual uselessness of wealth."Chapter 10, pg 187: "As a perpetual fan of Mughal history (the rulers behind the Taj Mahal) I imagined Khanzada modeling her salon after the sophisticated and cultured ones visited by Indian nobles in this era."Chapter 11, pg 208: "All the ifrit are named after real, terrifying figures! Aeshma: Zoroastrian demon of wrath (mace included!), Sakhr: 1001 Nights (fisherman djinn), Vizaresh: Zoroastrian demon who waits at the gates of hell, Qandisha: Moroccan water djinn who seduces men and drives them mad with love."Chapter 14, pg 250: "This is based on a very dark, likely apocryphal tale of the Abbasid Caliph Mansur having a similar secret cavern in which he stored the murdered bodies of his challengers, the Alid family -- later discovered by his son and daughter-in-law after his death."Chapter 15, pg 270: "I was able to do a lot of research that later informed this book while interning at an Omani cultural organization. So I ended up modeling the king's royal attire after their sultan's. A good scholar always rewards their patron!"Chapter 18, pg 326: "I worked in healthcare for several years before writing full-time. It may have influenced my perceptions of Nahri's more difficult patients!"Chapter 24, pg 430: "Don't forget Jamshid's interest in Nahid healing..."

## References

1. ↑ Moonkestrel.com The Constellation of Moon - November's Fantasy PageHabit blogpost - Dec 19, 2017
2. ↑ Beach Bookworm - Unboxing: November PageHabit - Nov 30, 2017
3. ↑ PageHabit on Twitter - last updated July 2018