Sofia Samatar

Jevick, the son of a pepper merchant, grows up listening to stories about Olondria, a distant land where books are abundant and literacy is prized. When his father dies, Jevick takes over the family’s annual trading journey and finally visits the country he has long imagined. Enchanted by its cities, literature, and elaborate traditions, he feels he has entered a dream. But his happiness is shattered when the ghost of an illiterate young woman begins to haunt him. Desperate to escape the apparition, Jevick seeks help from Olondria’s religious authorities, only to become entangled in a conflict between rival religious factions. To find freedom, he must uncover the dead woman’s story and confront the boundaries between the living and the dead, belief and knowledge, and personal experience and inherited tradition. Blending lyrical prose, immersive world-building, and philosophical reflection, Sofia Samatar’s award-winning debut is both an intricate fantasy adventure and a meditation on the transformative power of literature. It explores how stories shape our understanding of other people—and how reading can become an act of wonder, possession, and liberation.