Events

Event details

“Stunning. . . . The Moor’s Account sheds light on all of the possible the New World exploration stories that didn’t make history.” —Huffington Post

Mizna is proud to present a reading from Laila Lalami on Friday, October 16, 2015. Her new novel “The Moor’s Account” has been receiving widespread acclaim including an American Book Award, the Arab American Book Award, a Pulitzer nomination, and being longlisted for the Booker Prize.

Friday, October 16, 2015
7:30 p.m.
Fine Arts Center, State Fair Grounds
1265 Snelling Ave, St Paul, MN 55108
FREE Event!

Mizna and the College of St. Benedict are presenting Laila Lalami’s reading with Rain Taxi, as the kick-off reading for the 2015 Twin Cities Book Festival. This reading is sponsored by the Knight Foundation as part of Mizna’s Arab America at Home series.

ABOUT THE BOOK
In The Moor’s Account, Laila Lalami brings us the imagined memoirs of the first black explorer of America: Mustafa al-Zamori, called Estebanico. The Moroccan slave of a Spanish conquistador, Estebanico sails for the Americas with his master, Dorantes, as part of a danger-laden expedition to Florida. Within a year, Estebanico is one of only four crew members to survive. As he journeys across America with his Spanish companions, the Old World roles of slave and master fall away, and Estebanico remakes himself as an equal, a healer, and a remarkable storyteller. His tale illuminates the ways in which our narratives can transmigrate into history and how storytelling can offer a chance at redemption and survival.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Laila Lalami is the author of the novels Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits, Secret Son, The Moor’s Account, which won the American Book Award, the Arab American Book Award, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. It is also on the Hurston/Wright Legacy award shortlist and the Booker Prize longlist. Her essays and opinion pieces have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, The Nation, the Guardian, the New York Times, and in many anthologies. She is the recipient of a British Council Fellowship, a Fulbright Fellowship, and a Lannan Foundation Residency Fellowship and is currently a professor of creative writing at the University of California at Riverside. Her short story “The Lesson” was published in Mizna in 2004 (Volume 6, Issue 2).