Leo Africanus
Amin Maalouf
 The book is divided into four sections, each organized year by year to describe a key period of Leo Africanus's life, and each named after the city that played the major role in his life at the time: Granada, Fez, Cairo, and Rome. While filled with biographical hypotheses and historical unlikelihoods, the book offers a vivid description of the Renaissance world, with the decline of the traditional Muslim kingdoms and the hope inspired by the Ottoman Empire, as it grew to threaten Europe and restore Muslim unity. The book is based on true life experiences which took Leo Africanus almost everywhere in the Islamic Mediterranean, from southern Morocco to Arabia, and across the Sahara.