Reconstructing the story of Mustafa/Estebanico: A Moor in the New World: An interview with Laila Lalami

Abstract

Laila Lalami’s award-winning novel The Moor’s Account reconstructs the pioneering and epic journeys of Estebanico, a Moroccan slave who was among the four survivors of the disastrous Spanish Narvaez expedition to Florida in 1527. He is a historical figure, mentioned in Cabeza de Vaca’s eyewitness account of that journey during which the members of the expedition were lost in alien North America and separated from their known world until they reached Mexico (New Spain) eight years later. In this interview conducted by email in May 2015, Laila Lalami comments on her reconstruction of Estebanico’s scantily recorded story and the suppressed narratives of Spain and the New World, barely four decades after the Fall of Granada and Columbus’s discovery of the America in 1492.

Keywords:

• The Moor’s Account
• Mustafa/Estebanico
• Narvaez expedition
• Morocco
• Spain
• The New World