Leo Africanus (novel)

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Leo Africanus" novel – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (August 2007) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Leo Africanus

First paperback edition cover. The portrait used in the cover is of Mulay Ahmed by Peter Paul Rubens
Author	Amin Maalouf
Original title	Léon, l'Africain
Translator	Peter Sluglett
Language	French
Genre	Historical novel
Publisher	New Amsterdam Books
Publication date	1986
Publication place	Lebanon
Published in English	1992
Media type	Print (Paperback)
Pages	360 pp
ISBN	1-56131-022-0
OCLC	24502286
Dewey Decimal	843 20
LC Class	PQ3979.2.M28 L413 1991

Leo Africanus (French: Léon l'Africain) is a 1986 novel by Amin Maalouf, written in the form of a memoir, depicting the life of the eponymous Renaissance-era traveler, Leo Africanus.

Since very little is actually known about the life of Leo, the book fills in the historical episodes, placing him in the company of many of the key historical—political and cultural—figures of his time, including Popes Leo X, Adrian VI, and Clement VII; Ottoman emperors Selim I and Suleiman the Magnificent; Boabdil, the last Moorish king of Granada; Askia Mohammad I of the Songhai Empire; Ferdinand of Spain; Francis I of France; and artist Raphael along with others.

Leo Africanus is Maalouf's first novel and has received high praise. The work explores confrontations between Islam and Christianity as well as the mutual influence that the two religions had on each other and on the people they governed.