Arab-based Fantasy books

[writeshiek33]

i have read few books that use Arab stuff from various countries in one book looking because want to write one myself the thing is most of the story/ies the mc is unknown until final end which maybe third book of course the character introduced at first but most don't know who they are including reader. using his workers to know thier personalty in way so far as i know not done before

 

[CupofJoe]

That seems an interesting way to do things.
I can think of a few [mainly crime] stories where it isn't clear who the MC is until the story is well underway.
What were the names of these books? They sound interesting.

 

[writeshiek33]

my apologies was drunk when wrote that. i meant wrote that i have read lots of Arab culture based fiction but want to write the books with mc being unknown throughout the stories. inspired by daughter of empire trilogy by faust and

 

[CupofJoe]

No worries. I was just looking for some non-European/American Fantasy to ready.
I'm working with a couple of Chinese people who read fantasy in English and Mandarin and they have me thinking further afield for something to read.
I've read some Feist but not those. I think I stopped a couple of books after the first Riftwar Trilogy.
Keeping an MC unknown will be quite a trick. Good luck!
I've read a few Noire stories where the MC is unnamed or called something obviously generic like Joe.
I think that would have been a great twist if Neville Longbottom [from Harry Potter] would have been revealed as the real hero/chosen one, right at the climax of the last book. He is there all through the stories [almost] mirroring HP's life, so it wouldn't take much for them to switch roles... HP was the sacrificial shield/goat for Voldermort to focus on keeping NL in a relatively nice quiet safe life.

 

[Moonlake]

I'm not sure whether it will truly be so but I think an epic fantasy written in omniscient POV with multiple protagonists/MCs could work out to achieve the same thing as what you are aiming for. Just what I think though.
Alternatively, this might be the realm of how your MC is not your protagonist or your narrator.

 

[neodoering]

I immediately think of the novel Alif the Unseen, about a young computer nerd/hacker in an unidentified Gulf nation in the present time, and his oddball friends, and some djinn... Author is G. Willow Wilson.

Just a few months ago I read The City of Brass, by S. A. Chakaraborty. Another fun book.

If you have lots of time on your hands, read The Arabian Nights, with the Sir Richard Burton translation. If you can't get that, get an abridged edition. There are many stories within stories here, and maybe one in ten is fantasy ("The City of Brass") or sci-fi ("The Ebony Horse"). Some of the stories border on unreadable, being little more than long lists of medicinal instructions or shouts against women, Jewish people, foreigners, etc. A good abridged edition will be about 1,000 pages long and will hold all the favorites (Aladdin, Ali Baba, Sindbad, and so forth).