Master of Poisons

by Andrea Hairston

Overview

“This is a prayer hymn, a battle cry, a lovesong, a legendary call and response bonfire talisman tale. This is medicine for a broken world." —Daniel José Older

Named a Best of 2020 Pick for Kirkus Review's Best Books of 2020

Award-winning author Andrea Hairston weaves together African folktales and postcolonial literature into unforgettable fantasy in Master of Poisons

The world is changing. Poison desert eats good farmland. Once-sweet water turns foul. The wind blows sand and sadness across the Empire. To get caught in a storm is death. To live and do nothing is death. There is magic in the world, but good conjure is hard to find.

Djola, righthand man and spymaster of the lord of the Arkhysian Empire, is desperately trying to save his adopted homeland, even in exile.

Awa, a young woman training to be a powerful griot, tests the limits of her knowledge and comes into her own in a world of sorcery, floating cities, kindly beasts, and uncertain men.

Awash in the rhythms of folklore and storytelling and rich with Hairston's characteristic lush prose, Master of Poisons is epic fantasy that will bleed your mind with its turns of phrase and leave you aching for the world it burns into being.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250260543
Publisher:	Tom Doherty Associates
Publication date:	09/08/2020
Pages:	512
Sales rank:	182,641
Product dimensions:	8.30(w) x 5.40(h) x 1.60(d)

About the Author

Andrea Hairston is a novelist, essayist, playwright, and the Artistic Director of Chrysalis Theatre. She is the author of Redwood and Wildfire, winner of the 2011 Tiptree Award and the Carl Brandon Kindred Award, and of Mindscape, shortlisted for the Phillip K Dick and Tiptree Awards, and winner of the Carl Brandon Parallax Award. In her spare time, Hairston is the Louise Wolff Kahn 1931 Professor of Theatre and Afro-American Studies at Smith College. She has received the International Association of the Fantastic in the Arts Distinguished Scholarship Award for outstanding contributions to the criticism of the fantastic. She bikes at night year-round, meeting bears, multi-legged creatures of light and breath, and the occasional shooting star.

Editorial Reviews

★ 07/06/2020

Hairston (Will Do Magic for Small Change) dazzles with this complex epic fantasy about a people struggling to survive in the world they’ve helped destroy. A poison desert is spreading across the Arkhysian Empire, killing everything in its path. Djola, Emperor Azizi’s second in command, has tried to warn the population for years, urging them to save their homeland—but to no avail. Now that it’s too late for any minor precaution to help, he sets out to find a solution. As Djola works to stop the world from burning, he discovers the darkness lurking within the empire and in his own heart. Meanwhile, garden sprite Awa, a young griot in training, struggles to find her own place in the uncertain future. In stirring prose (“As long as sweet water fell from the sky every afternoon and mist rolled in on a night wind, everybody promised to change—tomorrow or next week. Then crops failed and rivers turned to dust.”), Hairston weaves a rich tapestry of folklore and adventure, inviting readers into a well-developed, non-Western fantasy world, while navigating pressing issues of climate change and personal responsibility. This is an urgent, gorgeous work. Agent: Kristopher O’Higgins, Scribe Agency. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

Named a Best of 2020 Pick for Kirkus Review's Best Books of 2020

Praise for Master of Poisons:

"Master of Poisons is sheer, undiluted brilliance. Epic, courageous, unapologetically fierce. The world needed an epic fantasy from the unstoppably creative mind of Andrea Hairston, and it's right on time. This is a prayer hymn, a battle cry, a lovesong, a legendary call and response bonfire talisman tale. This is medicine for a broken world." —Daniel José Older

"Master of Poisons makes me laugh, gasp, and dream of the world we are so desperately holding onto and of a better world yet to come . . . I am so grateful Andrea hasn't given up on us! May she keep gifting our world with her expansive imagination throughout the years!" —Sheree Renée Thomas

"Nobody does it better than Andrea Hairston, and if you doubt it, just open Master of Poisons and follow her into the light." —Pearl Cleage

"Andrea Hairston's writing is not to be missed. Her fantasy is rich with evocative detail, stunning and original, and her characters deeply humane and engaging. This is the kind of fantasy that expands your mind and warms your heart.” —Martha Wells

"Hairston weaves a rich tapestry of folklore and adventure, inviting readers into a well-developed, non-Western fantasy world, while navigating pressing issues of climate change and personal responsibility. This is an urgent, gorgeous work." —Publishers Weekly starred review

Praise for Andrea Hairston:

"[A] beautifully multifaceted story...with deep, layered, powerful characters. Highly recommended."—The New York Times on Will Do Magic for Small Change

"The entire work is filled with magic, celebrating West Africans, Native Americans, art, and love that transcends simple binary genders. Hairston's novel is a completely original and stunning work."—Publishers Weekly on Will Do Magic for Small Change

"A heartbreaking, game-changing, life-affirming, truth-telling powerhouse."—Daniel José Older on Will Do Magic for Small Change

"An affirmation of the power of joy to transform the world, and reading it will make you sing like a bird while wishing for wings with which to fly."—Nisi Shawl on Will Do Magic for Small Change

From the Publisher

★ 2020-07-29
An epic fantasy set in an African-inspired world on the brink of ecological disaster.

Djola, the Arkhysian Empire’s Master of Poisons, has a plan to stop the spreading poison desert. Hezram, a powerful priest, offers to use dark blood magic. But Djola believes in his “map to tomorrow,” which involves searching for a powerful spell to unravel the cause of the dangerous void-storms. Awa has an affinity with bees and a talent for traveling to Smokeland, the spirit realm. Sold to the Green Elders on her 12th birthday, Awa comes of age on the margins of empire, learning from Yari, the griot (storyteller) of griots. Along the way, she will learn to question much of what she’s been taught: about the Elders, about people the Empire calls "savages," and about “vesons,” who, like Yari, are neither man nor woman. Both Djola and Awa will be tested, and both will make enormous sacrifices to save the people—and the world—they love. This complex story spans years, travels to every corner of a richly imagined fantasy world, and even dips into the minds of elephants, bees, and rivers: “The Bees...dream of pools of nectar, clouds of pollen, and evening dew heavy with flower scent. Why dream of anything else?”

This book’s lyrical language and unsparing vision make it a mind-expanding must-read.

Kirkus Reviews

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