THE EMPEROR’S BABE

Holy Po-Mo, Batman! How about a historical, multicultural, transgender novel—in verse, yet!—about a colony of third-century Africans living in London under the empire (the Roman empire, that is).

There are some stories that just can’t be told straight, and newcomer Evaristo doesn’t bother trying. She lets herself go wild in this account of the fabulous life and celebrated adventures of Zuleika, a Sudanese girl (“Illa Bella Negreeta”) whose parents brought her from Khartoum to London—er, make that Londinium—and married her off to a Roman nobleman before she had even come within spitting distance of puberty. Her husband Felix was an old man in his 30s, very rich, and hardly ever in town, and he saw to most of Zuleika’s needs, installing her in a gigantic house with an army of servants to attend to her. The problem was that he attended to other matters himself, and left her completely on her own. So she became a club kid in short order, hanging out at the ultra-hip Mount Venus nightclub with all the trannies and fashionistas and even became tight with transvestite goddess Venus herself. Zuleika soon becomes a fixture of the downtown scene, getting her frocks from the best shops and trading adulterous gossips with her girlfriends. Eventually she is spotted at the theater by the Emperor Septimus Severus, who happens to be passing through his British colonies on a kind of goodwill tour, and the two are struck by a thunderbolt. True love at last! And Felix can hardly complain, even if he were of a mind to, since everybody has to stand aside to let the Emperor cut in. Unfortunately for Zuleika, however, the Emperor is a king as well as a lover, and a soldier as well as a king. And soldiers have a way of dying in battle.

Truly crazy, lots of fun, and more than slightly perverse: this reads like an episode of Sex and the City written by Ovid.