The story also follows Nasir, the crown prince who acts as an assassin and is kept on a tight leash by his father. Inspired by ancient Arabia, We Hunt the Flame tells the story of Zafira, a legendary hunter who disguises herself as a man in order to travel into a dangerous forest to feed her people. Faizal set the story in a world reminiscent of ancient Arabia, avoiding ties to South Asian cultures that she states are often wrongfully entwined with stories about the Middle East. įaizal reports during her writing process, she began to sketch a map and found that the map closely represented Arabia and decided to write the book in a setting that was more familiar to her. Hafsah Faizal was inspired by The Hunger Games and The Lord of the Rings, asking herself the question 'what if the games were set in a fantasy world?' and using that as the basis for her story. Faizal first got the idea to write the novel at age 17, when she first came into contact with the young adult novel scene, due to being a book blogger.

She found her literary agent through the Twitter book pitch contest #DVPit, finishing up the first draft of what would ultimately become We Hunt the Flame just before the contest started. Hafsah Faizal wrote four other manuscripts before starting the first draft of We Hunt the Flame. It is the first book of the Sands of Arawiya duology, followed by We Free the Stars in January 2021. We Hunt the Flame is a 2019 young adult fantasy novel written by Hafsah Faizal.

We Free the Stars by Hafsah Faizal