"The Moor's Account" by Laila Lalami

In The Moor’s Account Laila Lalami offers the first-person narrative of a black Moorish slave who, after selling his freedom, sails with a Spanish explorer-plunderer to the Gulf Coast of Florida in 1527. The story is a sweeping, detailed account of the newcomers’ struggles with the natives, the weather, and the would-be conquistadores’ geographical blundering and amoral arrogance. Through her storyteller, the author simply lets the heinous and cataclysmic events unfold. It is highly skilled and effective, and rivets the reader to the page.

Our narrating Moor Mustapha tells the unvarnished truth about the brutal treatment meted out by the Spaniards to the natives. Led on and addled by the thirst for gold, the explorers treat the natives with murderous efficiency. Alongside the bigotry and brutality, the Europeans display an utter lack of common sense as events, natural and social, conspire against them. Through it all Mustapha hopes for eventual manumission—his servitude extends well past its original end date—and he occasionally imagines he sees positive signs where there truly are none. He marries a charismatic, self-assured native woman and becomes a renowned healer who unfortunately attracts a large following. To learn why this is unfortunate, give yourself the blessing of reading the book.

The magisterial judgments we make these days about injustice and iniquity about Europeans’ behavior in the New World, Mustapha makes for us. There are moments when he compares the Spaniards’ actions with those of contemporaneous Mohammedan caliphs and sultans, and the Europeans always come out worse.

This review became a retelling of the sins of white European explorers, but this book is a lot more than that. Mustapha’s travels, his concern over feeding his mother and brothers, his flexibility and resourcefulness, and his eventual crossing the goal line make him an unforgettable character, and this a truly well-crafted novel.