The Wrath and the Dawn

The Wrath and the Dawn is a 2015 work of young adult fiction by Renee Ahdieh. The book reinterprets the classic collection of Middle Eastern folk tales, Arabian Nights, in the context of a mystical love story set in Khorasan, the site of modern-day northwest Afghanistan. It concerns an 18-year-old boy named Khalid, the royal Caliph of Khorasan, who participates in a ritual wherein he finds a new bride every morning and executes her before the next dawn. The novel’s protagonist is a 16-year-old girl named Shahrzad, who ostensibly volunteers to marry Khalid with a plan to avenge the death of her friend and the rest of his victims. Instead, she comes dangerously close to falling in love with Khalid, discovering that there is more to his ritual than the stories tell. Shahrzad resolves to set out in search of the truth about the king and stop the cyclical deaths.

The novel begins as Shahrzad volunteers to be a bride of King Khalid’s, despite knowing that it would take her life. She is galvanized to do so after learning that her friend Shiva has died after marrying the king. Trying to escape the despotic king, Jahandar, Shahrzad’s father, flees with her sister to the childhood home of Tariq, who was close to Shahrzad in childhood. Before they can reach Tariq, he has run off with his friend Rahim to stop Shahrzad’s murder.

Shahrzad’s wedding night arrives; before dawn, Khalid finds her, and she tells him a story. She filibusters the cyclical pattern by extending the story throughout the next night. In response, Khalid spares her an extra day. In the morning of her second day, Shahrzad requests to be taught archery despite secretly being skilled. Khalid again concedes. On the second night, she repeats her story for him. His guards again come for her in the morning, but Khalid spares her once more.



Tariq arrives at the house of his uncle Reza with Rahim. Reza is Shiva’s father, who lost his wife to suicide after the murder of his daughter. That day, Shahrzad secretly witnesses Khalid’s sword fight, but is discovered by the General. The General perceives her as a threat and sends her off to be hanged. At the hanging, she is saved by Khalid and Tariq. He apologizes, but Shahrzad has a hard time forgiving him. Khalid leaves abruptly to go to Amardha for the week.

Meanwhile, Reza, Rahim, and Tariq try to plan how to overthrow the evil king. Khalid’s childhood mentor, Musa, visits Shahrzad, and tells her the story of his mother’s affair, after which his father killed her, setting the moral precedent for Khalid’s own atrocities. Musa tells her that Shahrzad has an innate gift that can end the murders.

Shahrzad attempts to poison Khalid after bringing him into the city dressed as a commoner. A drunk man attacks them and begins a brawl, and Shahrzad fends the pursuers off with her bow. They reconcile and Khalid forgives her. In the ensuing days, Khalid gets a worsening headache, and his uncle tells him that it is because he has not killed his wife. Still, Khalid refuses to kill Shahrzad, and she begins to believe that Khalid is not responsible for the deaths. One night, she impulsively asks her why the other girls had to die, and he leaves the bedroom.



Next, the Sultan Salim visits. Khalid’s uncle, there are rumors that he is trying to usurp the throne. His daughter Yasmine dances for Khalid at a banquet, enraging Shahrzad. From a balcony above, Tariq oversees an embrace between Khalid and Shahrzad and realizes she has fallen for him. Khalid notices him spying and requests research into his background.

One night, a group infiltrates Shahrzad’s room. Her assistant shouts for help, and Khalid and Jalal come and kill all but one of them. Shahrzad is moved to Khalid’s quarters, and Khalid leaves to investigate. She finds a packet of letters from Khalid to the families of each of his victims that confirm that he killed every one of them. Meanwhile, Reza joins up with Zalim over their shared hatred for Khalid, and it is revealed that they had sent the men to break into Shahrzad’s room.

Around that time, Khalid realizes that Shahrzad and Tariq are friends, and offers to let Shahrzad kill him to avenge her friend’s murder. She declines and they sleep together. Later on, Khalid reveals that he is under a curse placed by the father of his first wife, who had committed suicide. The father believed it was Khalid’s fault, and required that he kill 100 wives in order to lift the curse. Around this time, a fire starts in the city due to Khalid’s resistance to the curse’s demand. Shahrzad and he escape the city with the help of Jalal.



The Wrath and the Dawn expresses a distinctly Middle Eastern conception of revenge as a non-zero-sum game, instead portraying it as part of an eternal battle between agents with ambiguous and contradictory moral codes. In doing so, it humanizes the changes of heart that its central characters undergo as they struggle to make the right choice and locate the true sources of evil that hide in their complex world.