Akiva Reads

by Barbara Cohen, Bahija Lovejoy

Sought this out for #disguisedasaboy queer/trans subtext, and it delivers.

To tell the truth, after twelve weeks among men only, after twelve weeks without ever looking at my own self, I'd almost forgotten I was a woman. That doesn't mean I thought of myself as a man. I was only me, Nasir.

The author definitely didn't understand the subtext she was putting down, the speed it was squashed. I would bet it's actually anachronistic that none of these rich boys has ever heard of homosexuality, although I don't have citations for this.

I found the beginning slow but it sped up considerably. Instead of discovering magic powers, the characters are learning about the obscure and mystical powers of capitalism. Not interesting to me at all, personally, but I thought it was well done - it's clear what Buran/Nasir likes about it.

It's interesting how learning Arabic has changed how I see some stylistic translation choices! "O my father" sounds super formal in English, at least in part because it's so polysyllablic, but when it's a literal translation of "ya abbi" and you know that ya is an indispensable part of speech, you can see how it could actually be just a normal and familiar way to talk.