The Many Assassinations of Samir, the Seller of Dreams

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of physical abuse.

The narrator, Omar, who is called “Monkey” or “Little Monkey” within the story, tells his tale looking back from a future point in the story. 

He describes how he was stoned “to death” by an angry mob of monks from his monastery who accused him of heresy. When the monastery’s phoenixes die, Monkey points out that their ability to resurrect challenges their belief system, which depends on a binary of life and death, with nothing else. Monkey suggests that there must be a third thing, love, and the monks turn on him. Monkey flees barefooted, screaming for help, intermittently hit by stones until he bleeds; at one point, he tries to go through dangerous rocks and falls, briefly falling unconscious, which he describes as “death.”

Monkey explains that he is an orphan thrice-over—once from his parents, once from the old widow who cared for him, and now from the monastery, which has rejected him. He runs into a caravan, where he begs for mercy from the guards, followed by the monks. A round man with an old, blind donkey approaches. He introduces himself as Samir and translates between the guards and the monks.