...my mother and I had been arguing about my path since the morning I left at sixteen to beg mercy from my father’s creditors and instead stole the ship and cargo intended to pay his debts. [loc. 737]
Amina is a middle-aged mother living in a small, secluded village in Aden with her daughter. Somehow, interested parties learn of her storied past (though 'to be a woman is to have your story misremembered') and seek her out for one last job. A young woman has been kidnapped by a Frankish adventurer -- and her dead father was a valued member of Amina's crew. Everything ended in ruin: can Amina get her crew back together, rescue the girl, and come to terms with at least some of the horrific memories that shadow her life?
I think you know the answer to that question.
The voyage is as important as the destination, though, and Amina's adventure (dictated to a humble scribe, whose expostulations occasionally erupt onto the page) is great fun. Amina's adventures take place in the lands around the Indian Ocean, in the medieval period, and though the novel is firmly rooted in history it also features fantastical elements familiar from the Arabian Nights -- djinns, sea monsters, lunar spirits and peris. Amina's faith is strong: she strives to be a good Muslim (no sex outside marriage, which is why she's had four husbands), prays for forgiveness for her lapses, and tries to apply the teachings of the Koran to the situations in which she finds herself. It was refreshing to read a historical fantasy novel that was grounded in a non-Western culture, and Chakraborty peppers her narrative with little details that bring that world to life. I was also happy to see queer and trans characters in this setting.
That said, I'd have liked more seafaring, and I didn't wholly engage with any of the characters -- though Dalila and Raksh were both intriguing, and I hope to see more of them in future novels. (Why, yes, this is the first in a trilogy.) And I believe I have at least one volume of Chakraborty's 'Daevabad' trilogy, set in the eighteenth century: I shall read it some day.
A minor quibble: the Kindle edition renders some passages, designed to look like letters, as images: this is not easy to read on a monochrome device.
Shortlisted for the Hugo award for best novel, 2023.
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