Afterword
The seed of this story came from my first reading of Abu Abdallah Ibn Battutah’s Travels, many years ago. During his last recorded journey, to West Africa, he stayed in 1353 in a town on the Niger between Timbuktu and Gao with a high-ranking commander of the Empire of Mali. ‘A five-span-high slave-boy came in,’ Abu Abdallah remembered when he wrote his travel book. ‘The commander called him and said to me, “This is your welcoming gift. Keep an eye on him in case he bolts.” . . . The boy he gave me is still with me to this day.’ Over the years, that boy grew in my imagination into Sinan. I realized he would have a tale or two to tell. It was while staying in different circumstances further up the Niger (under house arrest in a hotel-c*m-brothel in the Guinean town of Siguiri, jus
