Moor's Account (Lalami)

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for The Moor's Account:

1. What role does money—and the pursuit of money—play in this book? Early on, Estebanico's father warns him that "trade would open the door to greed and greed was an inconsiderate guest; it would bring its evil relations with it." What are the ways in which that prediction plays out in the novel?

2. Why does Estebanico sell himself into slavery?

3. Once a slave, Estebanico is taken to Spain where he is stripped of his name, Mustafa ibn Muhammad ibn Abdussalam al-Zamori. What is the significance of that act—symbolically in the novel, as well as psychologically/spiritually in real life? What does it mean to deprive someone of his/her name? How does losing his name affect Estebanico?

4. Laila Lalami is concerned about the role that Arabs, Africans, and Muslims played in founding the New World. Why were people of color—non-Europeans—left out of historical accounts of New World discovery? How does the author develop her ideas of omission, particularly near the end of the novel when Estebanico finds the wooden charm in the shape of a hand?

5. In what way does Estebanico's account of the expedition differ from the official version by Cabeza de Vaca? What was omitted from the "official" version—and why?

6. Follow up to Question 5: Estebanico equates written records with power. What might he mean?

7. This story is very much about atonement. How does Estebanico remake himself? What events led to his desire to redeem himself? Talk about the way that Lalami portrays the Castilians as opposed to Moors and Native Americans? Why are Europeans seemingly beyond redemption in this story?

8. Why does Estebanico decide to write his own account of the expedition? Consider his thinking that "Maybe if our experiences, in all of their glorious, magnificent colors, were somehow added up, they would lead us to the blinding light of the truth." Keeping that passage in mind, talk about storytelling as a spiritual endeavor.

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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