I'm surveying African literature, and Lalami came to my attention as a Moroccan writer. Now I know that she wrote the book over 20 years after moving to the US (which I didn't before I began), but I still would have been interested in it if only because it won a Pulitzer and got a lot of critical acclaim.
The book poses as the diary of the travels of Estevanico, a real person, the first person of African descent to explore parts of America. He was part of and one of the few survivors of an expedition to what is now Florida, led by Panfilo de Narvaez, in 1527 and 1528. And it brings a little oomph to the story, to know that some of it is true.
But I DNF'ed, unfortunately. I didn't even read very far into it. To me, the characters had no depth or reality. Everything was trite and processed, in accord with and to affirm Western liberal sensibilities. Our hero pined piously for his home and his faith. Those he was with were reliably brutal or dumb. Luck came to him at moments important to the plot. The author was unable to imagine anything very realistically. It all seemed like a gross manipulation.
by Bulawayoland