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The Moor's Account

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2015 novel by Laila Lalami

The Moor’s Account
AuthorLaila Lalami
LanguageEnglish
GenreNovel
PublisherPantheon Books
Publication date9 September 2014
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (Hardcover and Paperback)
Pages336 pp (hardback edition)
ISBN978-0307911667 (hardback edition)

The Moor's Account is a novel by Laila Lalami. It was a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction finalist in 2015.

The Moor's Account is a fictional memoir of Estebanico, the Moroccan slave who survived the Narvaez expedition and accompanied Cabeza de Vaca. He is widely considered to be the first African explorer of America, but little is known about his early life except for one line in Cabeza de Vaca's chronicle: "The fourth is Estebanico, an Arab Negro from Azamor."

Plot

The story is narrated in the first person by Mustafa ibn Muhammad ibn Abdussalam al-Zamori, a Moroccan slave who has been taken by his Spanish master, Andrés de Dorantes, on an expedition to the New World. The expedition lands in Florida in the vicinity of what is now Tampa Bay. Under the leadership of Pánfilo de Narváez, the men leave their ships behind and travel inland to look for gold. As they journey northward, they face resistance by indigenous tribes, suffer from disease and starvation, and quarrel with one another. Within a year there are only four survivors: Cabeza de Vaca, the treasurer of the expedition; Alonso del Castillo, a young nobleman, Andrés de Dorantes, one of the captains; and his Moroccan slave, Mustafa, whom the other three Spaniards refer to as Estebanico. Together, these four survivors travel westward, crossing the continent and living among indigenous tribes, reinventing themselves along the way as faith healers. Some years later, they are found by a party of Spanish slavers and brought to Mexico City, where they are asked to provide testimony about their journey—all except the slave, who tells his own story in the novel.

Style

The Moor's Account is structured as a sixteenth-century Arabic travelogue. To give the impression of historical authenticity without making the novel inaccessible to contemporary readers, Lalami decided to use words that belong to the register of the 16th century, but are still in use today. She avoided contractions because they appear too modern.

Since the narrator is of Arabic origin, features typical of Arabic texts are used. Thus, the narrator begins his account with a basmala, notes the passage of time according to the Hijri calendar, uses Arabic units of measurement, and refers to places with their Arabic names. The dialogue in the novel lacks quotation marks in order to replicate the style of Arabic manuscripts of the 16th century.

In the first half of the novel, The Moor’s Account alternates between two sets of stories: some chronicling the Narváez expedition, and others narrating Mustafa’s life prior to his arrival in the New World.

Awards and nominations

References

  1. "2015 Finalists". Columbia University. Retrieved 29 July 2015.
  2. "Book Review: 'The Moor's Account'". NPR. 15 September 2014. Retrieved 29 July 2015.
  3. Publisher book page Penguin Random House
  4. Interview with Laila Lalami Read to Write Stories
  5. Interview with Laila Lalami Kate Macdonald
  6. Pulitzer Citation The Pulitzer Prizes
  7. Man Booker Prize announces 2015 longlist Man Booker Prize Longlist 2015.
  8. American Book Awards press release American Book Awards.
  9. Arab American Book Award Winners Arab American Book Awards.
  10. 2015 Hurston Wright Legacy Awards The Washington Post
  11. "Langum Prize, past winners". Archived from the original on 30 June 2012. Retrieved 1 December 2015.
  12. The Wall Street Journal Best Books, The Wall Street Journal
  13. NPR NPR
  14. The New York Times The New York Times
  15. Kirkus Reviews Kirkus Reviews

External links

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