The Moor’s Account by Laila Lalami

July 22, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – audiobook. Read by Neil Shah. Audible, 2015. Originally published 2014. 13 hours, 18 minutes. Purchased. In 1527, the Spanish conquistador Pánfilo de Narváez sailed from the port city of Sanlúcar de Barramedawith 450 troops, officers, and slaves and another 150 sailors, wives, and servants to the newly discovered island of La Florida (present-day Florida, which is obviously not an island). His goal was to claim La Florida for the Spanish crown and find Apalacha, a city rumored to […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, 20BooksofSummer, Africa, Audiobook, Europe, Fiction, Indigenious Peoples, North America, ReadDiverse, United States • Tags: Laila Lalami

Secret Son by Laila Lalami

May 11, 2010 by Christina

Fiction — print. Algonquin of Chapel Hill, 2010. 305 pgs. Purchased. Lalami returns with her debut novel (not to be confused with her first book — a collection of short stories entitled Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits) and examines what propels someone to become a fundamentalist Muslim suicide bomber. In the case of Youssef El Mekki, discovery of his rich father’s existence, acceptance by that father, and then unexplainable rejection propels him into taking on the homicidal mission. For Youssef, […]

Categories: 2010 Reads, Africa, Fiction • Tags: Laila Lalami

Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits by Laila Lalami

April 23, 2010 by Christina

Fiction — print. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2005. 195 pgs. Received from PaperBackSwap. In her debut novel, Lalami introduces us to four Moroccans as they attempt to illegal cross the Strait of Gibraltar into Spain — Murad, Halima, Azziz, and Faten. The novel begins with the four illegal immigrants being forced out of the boat that promised to take them to the shore and into the icy, cold Mediterranean Sea. Each one is told to swim before the Spanish […]

Categories: 2010 Reads, Africa, Fiction, Textbook • Tags: Laila Lalami