The Moor’s Account

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* Winner of the American Book Award * Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2015 * A Finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction *

In 1527, a conquistador arrived on the coast of modern-day Florida with hundreds of settlers and claimed the region for Spain. Within a year of navigational errors, disease, starvation and fierce resistance from indigenous tribes, only four survivors remained: three noblemen, and a Moroccan slave known as Estebanico. The official record contains only the accounts of the noblemen. This is the story of Estebanico – a vibrant merchant from Barbary forced into slavery and a new name, reborn as the first African explorer of the Americas.

In a journey across the great swathes of the New World, would-be conquerors are transformed into humble servants, and fearful outcasts into healers. Through it all, Estebanico remains hopeful that he might one day find his way back to his family, even as the Old World roles of slave and master fall away, and he remakes himself as an equal – and a storyteller.

In this remarkable, alternate chronicle of a famed expedition, Laila Lalami 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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