Showing results for "Laila Lalami" in All Categories

Late one spring night, Driss Guerraoui, a Moroccan immigrant in California, is walking across a darkened intersection when he is killed by a speeding car. The repercussions of his death bring together a diverse cast of characters: Guerraoui's daughter Nora, a jazz composer who returns to the small town in the Mojave she thought she'd left for good; his widow Maryam, who still pines after her life in the old country....

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.