Alif the Unseen - Softcover

Marvelous... Intoxicating... Hugely entertaining... It doesn't take magical powers to predict it will be one of the year's best-loved books. * Washington Post * A Harry Potter-ish action-adventure romance [that] unfolds against the backdrop of the Arab Spring... Improbably charming... A bookload of wizardry and glee. * New York Times * Wilson writes beautifully, tells a great story, and even makes computer hackery seem like magic. * Sunday Times * Charming and original * Sunday Telegraph * Among the most original and challenging books of 2012, and my personal pick for at least one major award in 2013. * Guardian * Brilliant... witty, imaginative and unorthodox in all senses * Observer * An exhilarating techno-thriller but also far more than that... Wilson has created in this rich, literate novel a profound dialogue between tradition and modernity, belief and non-belief, fairy tale and urban reality. * Guardian *

'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...