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Novel about a real person. I enjoyed the meditative pace, and the unemotional prose telling about what Hasan/Leo did and where he traveled and things that happened totally out of his control. It also paints a glimpse of a picture of North Africa in the 13th/14th century when the Ottoman Empire was rising.

Map from Wikipedia. Protagonist was born in the city of Grenada; his family had to leave in 1494 or convert to Christianity, and chose to go to Fez.

#newwords orgeate: made from barley

orgeate syrup: sweet syrup made from almonds, sugar, and rose water or orange flower water. It was originally made with a barley-almond blend. It has a pronounced almond taste and is used to flavor many cocktails. (Wikipedia)

In the book it is used as a flavoring for a non alcoholic drink

Starting this; may be my January history category medieval read.

Fictional memoirs of the 16th century travel writer Hasan al-Wazzan al-Gharnati al-Fassi aka Leo Africanus de Medici born in the last years before the fall of Granada in 1492, who grew up in the Maghreb and travelled across the Sahara to Timbuktu, lived in Egypt under the Mamelukes before it was conquered by the Ottomans, and was captured by pirates and sold into slavery before becoming a diplomat and adviser serving Popes Leo X and Clement VII.

In that year, the sacred month of Ramadan fell in high summer.

@ShyBookOwl #FirstLineFridays

#lunchandabook
The fictional memoirs of Leo Africanus, who got a lot of mentions in the historical parts of The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu

In Leo Africanus, Amin Maalouf tells the story of a life trip around the Mediterranean Sea in the 15th and 16th century. Hassan, born in Grenada, when the South of 🇪🇸 was part of the Islamic world, is pushed with his family towards Fes in Morocco, by the Catholic kings. This is only the first stretch: Cairo, Tunis, Constantinople and Rome will follow in an adventure like life. Nice piece of historical writing. Liked the easy read.

Fascinating. I have read all the books by Maalouf and will probably will re read some of them