The Name of the Wind

"It is a rare and great pleasure to find a fantasist writing... with true music in the words... Wherever Pat Rothfuss goes... he'll carry us with him as a good singer carries us through a song."

— Ursula K. Le Guin, bestselling author and winner of the National Book Award

MY NAME IS KVOTHE

I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during days. I have talked to Gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep.

You may have heard of me.

So begins a tale unequaled in fantasy literature — the story of a hero told in his own voice. It is a tale of sorrow, a tale of survival, a tale of one man's search for meaning in his universe, and how that search, and the indomitable will that drove it, gave birth to a legend.

"THE NAME OF THE WIND is one of the best stories told in any medium in a decade. [Patrick Rothfuss'] debut novel combines the intricate stories-within-stories structure of The Arabian Nights with the academic setting of the Harry Potter series, and transformes it all into a brooding, thoroughly adult meditation on how heroism went wrong.... Shelve THE NAME OF THE WIND beside The Lord of the Rings... and look forward to the day when it's mentioned in the same breath, perhaps as first among equals."

— The Onion A.V. Club

"Patrick Rothfuss has real talent, and his tale of Kvothe is deep and intricate and wondrous."

— Terry Brooks, 22-time New York Times bestselling author