Winner of the American Book Award Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2015 A Finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction An absorbing story SALMAN RUSHDIERich vivid and gripping GUARDIANFeels at once historical and contemporary NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEWIn 1527 hundreds of settlers arrived on the coast of modernday Florida and claimed the region for Spain. Within a year of navigational errors disease starvation and fierce resistance from indigenous tribes only four survivors remained. Three were nobleman whose stories found their way into the official record. The fourth was known only as Estebanico a vibrant merchant from Barbary forced into slavery and a new name reborn as the first African explorer of the Americas. This is his story a journey across the great swathes of the New World where wouldbe conquerors are transformed into humble servants fearful outcasts into healers and the silenced into storytellers.