Leo the African
Leo the African is based on the true life-story of Hasan al- Wazzan, the sixteenth-century traveller and writer who came to be known as Leo Africanus, or Leo the African.
From his childhood in Fez, having fled the Christian Inquisition, through his many journeys to the East as an itinerant merchant, Hasan’s story is a quixotic catalogue of pirates, slave girls and princesses, encompassing the complexities of a world in a state of religious ux. Hasan too is touched by the instability of the era, performing his hajj to Mecca, then converting to Christianity, only to relapse back to the Muslim faith later in life.
In re-creating his extraordinary experiences, Amin Maalouf sketches an irresistible portrait of the Mediterranean world as it was nearly five centuries ago - the fall of Granada, the Ottoman conquest of Egypt, Renaissance Rome under the Medicis: all contribute to a background of spectacular color, matched only by the picaresque adventures of Hasan’s life.