The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by S.A. Chakraborty
While my main focus is non-fiction reading this year, I still want to indulge myself in fantasy. I have 4 books read this year, all of them non-fiction. But in the background, I have been doing a couple's read of The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Ali Chakraborty.
About two years ago, I suggested to my wife that we start reading together since we've enjoyed sharing audiobooks on road trips in the car. We are generally pretty consistent - either through audiobooks or actually physically taking turns reading aloud together, usually with a fantasy lofi playlist playing on our TV.
My wife had read this book previously and wanted an excuse to re-read it - and she (correctly) guessed that I would enjoy it. We listened to this book in an audio format.
The story was awesome. The setting was unique for me (which most of my experience has been connected to more Western settings, which I've been trying to expand in the past few years). The backdrop for our swashbuckling story is the Arabian sea in the 12th century. Our protagonist: the titular Amina al-Sirafi - a retired, middle aged pirate captain whose name still lives in infamy. When we begin our tale, she is a hermit and devoted mother. She also yearns for the spray of the salty sea on her face and the freedom of the open sea.
She is offered a job by a wealthy patron: to find a daughter who has been kidnapped by a Frankish (Western European/Germanic) mercenary named Falco. The reward is massive - enough to set her and her family up for life. This kicks off a high adrenaline, high fantasy adventure on the high seas. For some added fun, I regularly looked at a world map while listening to this book - at least when I wasn’t driving.
Overall, this book is an easy recommendation. It’s fun, well researched, and provides a refreshing take on a classic adventure. And its framing device provides a lot of opportunity to drop information about the world and our protagonist’s backstory without breaking immersion. The pacing is also great.
There are a few details I want to talk about that will require some minimal spoilers. Proceed past the cannon at your own peril!
Also, check out the content warnings.
A powerful ensemble cast
All of our major crew members of the Marawati (Amina’s ship) are fun to read and likable in their own right. I feel like the found family trope is increasingly overplayed, however this is a found family that found one another a lifetime ago. The first third of the book is just getting the gang back together, and navigating how people you intimately knew once have changed in the intervening years. People have children now. People have found faith. People have slowed down. It's a very interesting (and very human) dynamic that I don't see very often. As a middle-aged person myself, it’s sometimes nice to have a protagonist who is closer to my age than my student’s age.
Among the crew, my favorites are Amina and Dalila. Both are strong women surviving in a male dominated society who have carved out a place for themselves through overwhelming competence (and ruthlessness when the situation demands). All of the core crew are highly competent (Amina wouldn’t have them aboard the Marawati if they weren’t), but these two stand out. Amina is full of dry humor, and a delight to read. I usually don’t like first-person point of view, but Amina is a master class of it - not only does it make sense in-universe (she is speaking to someone recording her life story), but the narration is in the same tone as her spoken words. This POV works best with a protagonist with a strong or interesting voice. Dalila has some hilariously poor social skills but clearly underwent some kind of emotional change. She’s also an expert in chemicals and explosives, which decisively turns the fortunes for our heroes multiple times.
One of the fun dynamics between Amina and Dalila is how their relationship with faith has changed and grows over the story. Amina is a Muslim and Dalila is a Christian. It’s not at the forefront of the story, but their interactions over faith (which are always civil and friendly) are interesting.
An adversary worth the wait
You hear about our antagonist, Falco, from the very opening of the tale. He kidnapped a young woman named Dunya, the daughter of Amina’s wealthy patron. As the story unfolds, the crew hears more about him, filtered through gossip and hushed warnings. We learn he is a sorcerer, and Dunya is an occultist, and the truth of her kidnapping may be messier than initially thought.
Sometimes, an antagonist who has been looming over the narrative can be underwhelming when they eventually appear on the pages. Falco appears in person before Amina al-Sirafi in the back half of the novel. He quickly proves himself to be extremely dangerous, and worth every line of build-up. The man operates on a much greater scale than our heroes, yet still maintains human limitations. This somehow makes him even more terrifying.
The narration
As I said earlier, I consumed this book in an audio format. The voice acting for both Amina and her chronicler is full of character and well done. Amina will sometimes speak slightly off-microphone as she is ‘communicating’ with her chronicler. She will also sometimes pitch the volume of her voice low as the in-story situation demands. This is a great touch, but makes it a strain to hear occasionally. Some better balance from the audio mixer might’ve helped here.
Final thoughts
An excellent break from my non-fiction journey. I was reading How The Word Is Passed at the same time as this, and I finished them both around the same time. I believe the next book in the series is releasing in May. My wife (who is a much faster reader than I am) has already said she’s going to read it on her own, but I may save my own initial read for whenever she is ready for a re-read.
I’m currently reading three books: my fifth non-fiction (which will put me half way to my goal of 10 non-fiction books this year), another partner read with my wife, and finally a book that I got from the library late this week. Since the library book has a two week window, you’ll probably see another book review in two and a half weeks or so.
Yee haw.
Thanks for reading~