Alwyn Hamilton

Alwyn Hamilton is a Canadian novelist, born in Toronto in 1988 and educated in the History of Art at King's College, Cambridge. She writes young adult fantasy and is best known for the Rebel of the Sands trilogy: Rebel of the Sands (2016), Traitor to the Throne (2017), and Hero at the Fall (2018), a Wild-West-flavored fantasy drawing on One Thousand and One Nights and set in a desert kingdom shaped by djinn and rebellion. The first novel was a YALSA Teens' Top Ten nominee, drew comparisons to a blend of Lonesome Dove and Aladdin, and had its film rights optioned by Willow Smith. Hamilton followed the trilogy with the story collection Tales from Sand & Sea (2018) and returned to the same world in the novel The Notorious Virtues (2025).