The Many Assassinations of Samir, the Seller of Dreams

The Many Assassinations of Samir, the Seller of Dreams is a 2023 middle grade adventure novel by Daniel Nayeri, illustrated by Daniel Miyares. It received the Newbery Honor Award and was included on multiple Best of the Year lists, including those from NPR and The Wall Street Journal. Nayeri has an extensive history in writing and publishing and drew on his Iranian background and love of Silk Road stories to write this novel. Also inspired by Salman Rushdie’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince, this novel tells the story of 12-year-old Omar (called Monkey) and Samir, the conman and storyteller who supposedly bought his life for six bolts of silk. Through the tale, Nayeri explores themes including The Power of Storytelling in Creating Human Connection, The Power and Risk of Choosing Love and Family, and The True Roots of Accident and Destiny.

This study guide uses the 2023 hardcover edition published by Levine Querido.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of violence, physical abuse, death by suicide, and death. In addition, the source material uses offensive language, which is replicated in this guide only in quotes.

Plot Summary

The story is told in the past tense by Monkey, the 12-year-old narrator and protagonist. However, at a point further along in the novel, it is revealed that Monkey is telling the story to another character, and from then on, the story continues in the present tense, with Monkey narrating it as it unfolds.

The novel opens with the protagonist, 12-year-old Omar (or “Monkey”), being chased by monks from his former monastery, who want to stone him for the heresy of questioning their worldview: When the monastery’s two phoenixes die in quick succession and are then resurrected, Monkey questions the monastery’s belief system, asking if love exists outside of life and death. His question disrupted the monastery’s belief in a binary system in which the only two things that exist are life and death. By suggesting a third thing, love, he challenged their view. 

While running to escape the monks, he falls unconscious briefly when he trips over rocks, which he describes as his first death. When he wakes, Monkey flees to a caravan, where a con artist named Samir protects him from the monks. Samir persuades the monks to not only spare Monkey’s life but also pay to provide Monkey with clothes and a new waterskin. Now “owned” by Samir, who claims to have paid the equivalent of six bolts of silk for him, Monkey darkly declares that Samir’s lies are why he ended up killing him.

Samir owns little except an ancient donkey named Rostam. He has a complex relationship with other members of the caravan: Bird-seller Rasseem hates him, while others, like the blacksmith Smithy and his teenaged daughter Mara, tolerate him. Monkey falls in love with the sarcastic, witty Mara when she gives him food after he tells them the story of how he was exiled from his monastery.

One night near the city of Turfan, Monkey sees Rasseem paying off a guard. The next morning, the well has collapsed, and the caravan blames Samir, saying it is his divine punishment for conning the monks. Monkey defends Samir and blames Rasseem, but Samir pacifies everyone by promising them dates and yogurt at the next caravan stop. At the next stop, Monkey learns from a lieutenant that some of Samir’s enemies have hired a rogue Roman legion to kill him.

Samir holds an emergency meeting with the caravan to discuss rumors of his impending assassination. He quickly learns that another group besides the Rogue Legion is hunting him as well—a Viking berserker, a Persian mystic, a Bedouin chief, a Chinese poisoner, and a Mongol gunner are all also hunting him for supposed wrongs he has committed. When Smithy speaks up and claims that the famed, legendary killer Cid is hunting him, many members of the caravan leave. Only Smithy, Mara, Rasseem, and a few other tradesmen remain.

In the city of Korla, Samir barters a bag of gunpowder for cherry paste and raki, a type of alcohol. Monkey sees a Viking berserker in the distance, and they flee when he spots them. After the berserker destroys half the market in his rage, Monkey kills him by shoving a ball of gunpowder into his mouth. Afterwards, he barters with Samir—claiming he saved his life— for the price of one bolt, bringing Monkey closer to freedom.

The next stop is a caravanserai, or roadside inn, once owned by a friend of Samir’s but now owned by a relative and a stranger. A Persian dervish dances, and the metallic parts on his shoes set the inn on fire. Monkey and the innkeeper dive for safety, but Samir is still in danger. Monkey barters with the innkeeper, trading the raki for a tea tray, but when the innkeeper throws the raki on the dervish, the fire spreads and kills the dervish. Samir escaped unscathed because of Monkey’s act. Most of the merchants lose their goods in the fire, although Monkey has saved Samir’s life, and they agree that he has earned another silk bolt towards his freedom.

Only Rasseem, Smithy, and Mara join Samir and Monkey as they journey further into the desert. Monkey, despairing, sleeps under a statue in the desert, dwelling on Samir’s losses and plotting his death. One night, as the group travels through a rocky valley, they are attacked by the Mongolian gunner. They take shelter under a rocky outcropping, but the moonlight threatens to reveal their position. Monkey distracts the gunner with Rasseem’s birds and climbs up the rocks. He uses the innkeeper’s tea tray to reflect moonlight into the gunner’s eyes, causing him to fall off his ledge. The group loses everything in the battle but continues to travel together.

When they meet up with a caravan, Samir convinces an ex-pirate to give him some precious red coral. He trades this for sponges, sugarcane syrup, and gold, and he and Monkey go to a teahouse. The Chinese poisoner finds them there, and Samir plays chess with him. Samir sends Monkey to deliver food to Mara, asking him to come back and raise a ruckus in an hour. Monkey watches, concerned, as Samir seemingly drinks poison, but he eventually goes to Mara.

Mara seems distracted and dismissive of Monkey, and she eventually explains that she and her father are Accidentalists. Monkey realizes that they are Cid, and she confirms that Rasseem hired them to kill Samir. According to their methods, they have been waiting for an accident to do it. Monkey, heartbroken, returns to the teahouse and causes a ruckus. He finds the poisoner drunk and Samir sober. Samir switches the cups at the last minute and poisons the poisoner; they quickly haul his corpse out of town to dispose of it. Monkey and Samir leave alone.

While they are disposing of the corpse, Bedouin raiders chase them. Samir, who is friends with the leader and his wife, convinces them to spare his life in exchange for Monkey’s blessing and some other minor items. The raiders take the corpse of the poisoner but give Monkey the corpse’s ear to bury. Monkey is extremely disturbed but steals a knife from one of the raiders.

The Roman legion follows Samir and Monkey through the foothills of the Pamir Mountains. They reach a bridge, and Samir tells Monkey to run and save his own life. Instead, as the soldiers prepare to tell Samir who hired them, Monkey pretends to cut off Samir’s ear and stab him repeatedly in the chest. Samir falls off the bridge into the stream below.

Monkey tells the Roman legion the tale of their travels so far and gives them the poisoner’s severed ear as evidence of Samir’s death. They pay him for Samir’s death so that he can start a new life. When they are gone, Monkey goes down to the riverbank and finds Samir; both of their clothes are stained red from the cherry paste and syrup used to make the fake blood.

As they move on through the mountains, a rockslide nearly kills them, which Monkey calls his second death. They survive and are found by a messenger who carries a letter from Mara. Mara explains that she and her father had planned to kill them with the rockslide. They also tried to use a lion, but the lion ate Rasseem. After Samir and Monkey survived so many accidents, Mara and Smithy have decided they deserve to live. Monkey trades the knife to the messenger for Mara’s jade sash. The duo carries on their journey, playfully arguing about the price of Monkey’s freedom.