Abdullah Diab asked Alwyn Hamilton:

Hi Alwyn, I finished reading Rebel of the Sands two days ago, a great piece of work, congratulations! I just have one point I'd like to get it cleared by you if you don't mind, as you can read from my review (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1912065756), I was a bit disappointed by the correlation between people who live in the desert and them having Arabic names, can you tell us why maybe?

Alwyn Hamilton Hi there! Thanks so much, I'm so glad you enjoyed! To answer your question, what I would say on this is that the choice for the names was definitely not just because they live in the desert. REBEL actually started off originally as an idea that seemed like a Western, desert setting and all. But I knew instantly that I didn't want to write a straight Historical Western. I was working in Islamic Art at the time and the idea came to me to cross over the two genres because of how much they shared in their mythologized versions: desert settings, horse riding, a strong place of religion, stories and legends around bandits etc. etc. And at this point I made the decision that the people inhabiting this world, should not be the same people who would inhabit a John Wayne film, since it combines two genres. And on top of this a lot of the mythology in REBEL was partly inspired by folktales from the Arabian peninsula and this is a huge part of the story. So for me, the choice of names is inspired by the myths and legends that inspired REBEL and is definitely not simply because they live in the desert, it is an accumulation of things that made sense for their names to come from this culture. I hope that answers your question, do let me know if not!

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