Laila Lalami’s The Moor’s Account is a historical novel centered on the life of Mustafa Azemmouri—a real historical figure about whom almost nothing is known. In Álvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca’s account of the disastrous Narváez expedition, a single line acknowledges Azemmouri’s existence, calling him by the name his enslaver imposed upon him: “The fourth [survivor] is Estebanico, an Arab Negro from Azamor.” Other information about Azemmouri—including his real name, the identities of his parents, and the people who enslaved him—was pieced together from contemporary records. He is believed to be the first African explorer to see the Americas, but his status as an enslaved person means there is very little information about him, and all of it comes from people who showed little interest in faithfully representing his experience. Lalami thus aims to use fiction to give Azemmouri a voice and a chance to tell his own story.

When the Spanish explorer Pánfilo de Narváez set out for the “new world,” he had a mandate to claim the Gulf Coast for the Spanish crown, and he was in command of approximately 600 men. Nine years later, only four members of this original crew remained alive.