The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate

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"The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate"
Author	Ted Chiang
Language	English
Genre(s)	Fantasy short story
Published in	The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate
Publication type	novelette
Publisher	Subterranean Press
Publication date	July 2007

"The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" is a science fiction novelette by Ted Chiang originally published in 2007 by Subterranean Press and reprinted in the September 2007 issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction. It has been nominated for the 2008 Hugo Award for Best Novelette and won the 2008 Nebula Award for Best Novelette.^[1]

[edit] Plot summary

The story follows Fuwaad ibn Abbas, a fabric merchant in the ancient city of Baghdad. It begins when he is searching for a gift to give a business associate and happens to discover a new shop in the marketplace. The shop owner, who makes and sells a variety of very interesting items, invites Fuwaad into the back workshop to see his gateway into the future. Fuwaad is intrigued, and the shop owner tells him three stories of others who have traveled through the gate to meet and converse with their future selves. When Fuwaad learns that the shop keeper has another gate in Cairo that will allow people to travel into the past, he makes the journey there to try and rectify a mistake he made twenty years earlier.