Two Worlds

A blog about UK housing, Latin America, migration and the environment

  • Home
  • About
  • Masaya projects
  • Housing and migration publications
  • Contact
You are here: Home > Book reviews > The Moor’s Account by Laila Lalami

The Moor’s Account by Laila Lalami

December 31, 2015

moor's account

This story takes an unusual premise, adds some excellent research, and results in a very readable and sympathetic novel which convincingly describes one of the mosy bizarre episodes in the Spanish conquest of the Americas. The long walk undertaken by the Spanish adventurer Cabeza de Vaca is already chronicled (and a contemporary description forms a chapter in volume 2 of Hugh Thomas’s recent history of the ‘golden period’ of the Spanish monarchy). And it is known that he was accompanied by a ‘Moorish’ slave, renamed by the Spanish as ‘Estebanico’. What isn’t known is how Estebanico experienced the journey, and Lalami’s idea is to create, in fiction, the account he might have written, including a back story explaining what led him to become a slave.

Her research is exhaustive, and this combined with evident writing skills enables her to produce a very convincing account of a perilous journey which lasted for many years and which only a handful of adventurers survived. The most interesting part is her capturing of the various transitions which the men underwent. They moved from hostility and extreme cruelty towards the Indians to acceptance, friendship and – to a remarkable degree – integration into Indian societies. They adapted to their environment, so that by the end they had developed the necessary survival skills which they lacked at the beginning and whose absence (in part) led to the many deaths of their compatriots. Above all, they became equal partners in struggle, with Estebanico losing his slave status and, like the others, marrying into one of the Indian tribes.

Lalami has overcome formidable obstacles – the passage of 500 years, the very limited evidence about Estebanico himself, the difficulty of imagining the confrontations between peoples who were meeting each other for the first time in history, the possible temptation to be patronising or (on the other hand) to exaggerate the violence that was deployed. She overcomes all of these superbly, to the point where the reader not only enjoys Estebanico’s gripping tale but is left almost convinced that he must have written it himself.

Category: Book reviews | Tags: Spanish conquest

« Previous Next »

Subscribe

Subscribe to the Two Worlds blog and we'll send you an email alert when we publish a new post. Please review our Privacy Policy if you have any questions or concerns.

Categories

  • Housing
  • Migration
  • Latin America
  • Masaya project updates
  • Energy and the environment
  • Central America wildlife
  • Book reviews
  • Obituaries

Tags

allocations ALMOs Amazon river Argentina armadillos asylum beds in sheds Berta Cáceres birds Bolivar borrowing rules Brazil budget butterflies caribbean census chile climate change Colombia community cohesion coronavirus Costa Rica council housing Cuba daily life destitution dictators drugs economics Ecuador El Salvador energy efficiency env environment Green Deal Guatemala Gypsies and Travellers Haiti homelessness homeownership Honduras housing housing associations housing benefit housing finance housing i housing investment housing market housing policy human rights iguanas immigration checks India inequality integration interoceanic canal investment Ireland Latin America Latin writers local authorities Malvinas Masaya media Mexico migration migration policy migration statistics mining model cities Nicaragua Nicaragua crisis Northern Ireland outsourcing panama Paraguay pension funds planning private rented sector public transport race refugees regeneration rents right to buy right to rent Scotland sloths slums solar energy Spain Spanish conquest stock transfer tenancy reform tenant involvement transport US intervention Venezuela Vista Alegre volcanoes welfare reform

Blogroll

  • Blogs for the London Review of Books
  • Articles for The Guardian
  • Blogs for Open Democracy
  • Blogs for Council on Hemispheric Affairs
  • Articles for Counterpunch
  • Articles for The Grayzone

Related websites

  • Chartered Institute of Housing
  • Housing Rights
  • Leicester Masaya Link Group
  • Council on Hemispheric Affairs
  • UK Housing Review
Housing Guardian contributor

Admin

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org
John Perry John Perry lives in Masaya, Nicaragua where he works on
UK housing and migration issues and writes about those
and other topics covered in this blog.
Copyright © 2012- Two Worlds. Privacy & Cookie Policy. Powered by WordPress and Hybrid.
We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.AgreePrivacy & Cookie Policy