PULITZER PRIZE FINALISTNOMINATED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZEWINNER OF THE AMERICAN BOOK AWARDA New York Times Notable BookA Wall Street Journal Top 10 Book of the YearAn NPR Great Read of 2014A Kirkus Best Fiction Book of the Year In these pages, Laila Lalami brings us the imagined memoirs of the first black explorer of America: Mustafa al-Zamori, called Estebanico. The slave of a Spanish … memoirs of the first black explorer of America: Mustafa al-Zamori, called Estebanico. The slave of a Spanish conquistador, Estebanico sails for the Americas with his master, Dorantes, as part of a danger-laden expedition to Florida. Within a year, Estebanico is one of only four crew members to survive.
As he journeys across America with his Spanish companions, the Old World roles of slave and master fall away, and Estebanico remakes himself as an equal, a healer, and a remarkable storyteller. His tale illuminates the ways in which our narratives can transmigrate into history—and how storytelling can offer a chance at redemption and survival.
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Although this isn’t a strictly historical book per se, it is fairly true to what we currently know about these times. It is also a more nuanced account of some of the realities of slavery than is popular in today’s pop sources. Characters are complex (human) and it is easy to fall in love with them . The author has done a good job of creating something wonderful that draws the reader into the story. Hope to see more like this in the future.
If one enjoys slave narrative, this book is excellent. The author does not sugar coat how brutal the life of a slave could be. In the end there is hope, acceptance, and integration into his life.
Well written, very well imagined.
One of the more ‘readable’ Man Booker nominees from a year that was notable for them. As advertised, the tale is told from the perspective of a traveler (if you will) rather than conqueror.
The Moor begins the trip as a slave but due to shipwreck becomes part of a small party trying to traverse the New World in hopes of rejoining the main Spanish force – a dicey proposition for a chattel slave.
What I loved was Estabanico’s character, POV and interactions with Spaniards and indigenous peoples. There is also plenty of new ground (to me) on New and Olde World interactivity.
Highly recommended.
The Moor’s Account by Laila Lalami is another fantastic work of fiction. Like almost all good works of historical fiction, it is grounded in actual events: In 1527 the Pánfilo de Narváez expedition set off for America – and Florida, specifically – to be beset by every trouble that could plague a sixteenth centruy explorer. Narváez, in fact, was carried out to sea on a raft and never seen or heard of again. Four men (of the six hundred or so who set off for the new world) did survive: Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Alonso del Castillo Maldonado, Andrés Dorantes de Carranza, and his Moroccan slave, Estebanico.
Cabeza de Vaca returned to Spain achieved great fame with his account of their journeys through the New World. The Moor’s Account is Lalami’s telling of this same story, from the perspective of Estebanico (who began life as Mustafa al-Zamori). In that way, this is Mustafa-Estabanico’s memoir, and Lalami does the story justice. The voyage to America, foundering of the explorers’ party, and life among the natives, are interwoven with the story of Mustafa, from his birth to the day he became a slave, and then his initial years in slavery, which were spent in Spain.
The story is well researched and Mustafa’s background story is beautifully created. Lalami writes things like, “…I had seen wonders that no other Zamori had. …. The world was not as I wished it to be, but I was alive. I was alive.” that make me want to fall into the pages and read forever.
No surprises then: I enjoyed this tremendously. I enjoyed it all the more for having recently read A Splendid Exchange, which discussed both the Spanish and Portuguese presence in North Africa (fittingly, Mustafa is a trader), as well as the exploration of the Americas. In the end, this is all about the prose, though, for it is page-after-page of a beautifully imagined and marvelously written story.
(This review was originally published at http://www.thisyearinbooks.com/2014/12/the-moors-account.html)