Amina al-Sirafi

Amina al-Sirafi is a pirate nakhudha of enough renown that she’s retired, living a quiet life on a secluded coast with her mother and her daughter, hiding from those who seek revenge; though it seems her adventures are far from over.

“Amina al-Sirafi” is also the series title given to the two historical fantasy-fiction books so far written by Shannon Chakraborty, The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi and its sequel The Tapestry of Fate, with hopefully at least one more on the way. The author’s Devabad trilogy has been on my radar, and when a family friend and then subsequently my partner strongly recommend The Adventures of, it somehow made it to the front of my queue, and I’m glad for it: I enjoyed both of these books immensely.

The series is set on a middle-ages Indian Ocean, “arguably among the oldest seas in maritime history”, according to the author’s notes, and she does copious historical research and shares further reading on the world if you want to know more about the fascinating and vibrant world these stories take place in – a breath of fresh air if, like me, you’re tired of the generic European-centered fantasy worlds so often synonymous with fantasy. I want to play a Zelda-like adventure video game set in this world.

The books are told mostly from Amina’s first-person limited perspective, with the first book including some interludes from the scholar Jamal to provide color & lore, and the second book including interludes from another character; both stories make great use of this structure for foreshadowing and metanarrative. Amina’s perspective as both a woman and a middle-aged person make for another great break from typical fantasy fare. Both stories, in their structure of being retold, also deal with the nature of narrator reliability and how such accounts can change, especially about women:

Traders along our fair shores warn against speaking her name as though she is a djinn that might be summoned as such—though, strangely, they have little compunction when it comes to spreading vicious rumors about her body and her sexuality: these things that men obsess over when they hate what they desire and desire what they cannot possess.

— The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi, Shannon Chakraborty

In another breath of fresh air, I had a very hard time predicting where either story was going to go – I find a lot of fiction predictable and tend to enjoy it regardless, but these stories twisted in wonderful ways. They also portray magic and otherworldly elements in the manner I’ve come to prefer: dangerous, difficult to explain or understand, and yet not a deus-ex-machina style of plot manipulation. They are also both wonderfully hilarious at times, and insightful at others, in a manner I’ve rarely seen outside of Discworld.

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi is a rollicking adventure across various points in the Indian Ocean, which introduces Amina, her backstory and family, when she’s approached by a woman with an offer she can’t refuse: Find and retrieve the woman’s granddaughter – apparently kidnapped by a foreign sorcerer, and get paid a million dinar; or else the woman will provide all Amina’s enemies with information about where to find her.

She has to get her crew back together, each of them also now older and with established families or other concerns, and start investigating. Along the way she reconnects with her estranged husband – unknowing father of her child, deals with horrors controlled by a somewhat sympathetic villain, all while trying to figure out what’s really going on and balance doing the right thing versus the necessary one.

“No. As I said there has been no demand for ransom. There … there has been no contact at all.”

“Then what makes you certain he kidnapped her? She might have simply run away.”

“She would never run away,” Salima said adamantly. “Dunya is a good girl. She was happy at home.”

“Happy sixteen-year-olds are rarer than just kings.”

— The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi, Shannon Chakraborty

Do make sure you read through the chapter “There was and was not a nakhudha named Amina al-Sirafi” – it is not an author’s note, it is the actual very touching conclusion of the book’s metanarrative.

The Tapestry of Fate continues with the setup the first book concluded with – Amina is tasked with hunting down and destroying several magical transgressions, but it is a very different book, one which I enjoyed more than the first one. Where the first book was sprawling in its locales and characters, this book mostly takes place in a single place and features a much smaller cast; but the story centers on a tension similar to what I described in my recommendation for A Sorceress Comes to Call, a tension of information-gathering and deceit in the face of immense consequences for failure, with a delightful perspective from a second character feeding us just enough information to keep us on the edge of trepidation.

 “Ah, yes, the delightful task of stealing the most dangerous object I’ve ever heard of from an immortal sorceress.” I glared at her. “You did insist upon taking part in these quests.”    — The Tapestry of Fate, Shannon Chakraborty

The tension of danger from this immortal sorceress is mixed with other tensions: the nature of legends and how stories twist in the telling; the tension of friendship, love, and alliances in the face of pulling a long con; and that of ethics and the cost of help that comes with a blood price. If I have any complaints about this story, the pacing seems a bit slow in the middle; though I also suspect that was necessary in helping setup the finale.

Tapestry ended on a rather devastating note and I am impatiently awaiting the third book.

Audiobooks note

I found both audiobooks quite enjoyable, making great use of the “first-person accounts being told to a scribe” format of the stories – with some simple production techniques contributing to the feeling that you’re actually listening in on Amina’s recounting of the tale to Jamal the scholar. Lameece Issaq provides a wonderfully convincing rendition of Amina; and each book had a supplemental narrator – the first for Jamal and the second for the other character – which contribute well towards the feeling of distinct perspectives and voices.