Early Modern Dialogue with Islam - (History, Languages, and Cultures of the Spanish and Portugue) by Antonio De Sosa (Paperback)

About the Book

This text offers a translation of Antonio de Sosa's sixteenth-century chronicle of his travels in North Africa, and particularly Algeria, with an introduction by María Antonia Garcés.

Book Synopsis

An Early Modern Dialogue with Islam: Antonio de Sosa'sTopography of Algiers (1612) makes available in translation a riveting sixteenth-century chronicle of European and North African cultural contacts that is virtually unknown to English-speaking readers. The Topography was written by a Portuguese cleric, Doctor Antonio de Sosa, who was captured by Algerian corsairs in 1577 and held as a Barbary slave for over four years while awaiting ransom. Sosa's work is a fascinating description of a city at the crossroads of civilizations, with a sophisticated multilingual population of Turks, Arabs, Moriscos, Berbers, Jews, Christian captives, and converts to Islam from across the world.

In the Topography of Algiers, Sosa meticulously describes the inhabitants' daily lives; their fashions, pastimes, feasts, and funerals; their government; the landmarks of the city itself; and much more. Readers will be struck by the vibrancy of his narrative, rendered into English with crisp accuracy by Diana de Armas Wilson. The Topography is a treasure trove of amazing customs, startling behavior, and historical anecdotes that will enthrall readers. The extensive introduction by María Antonia Garcés is a superb archival study of the Mediterranean world described by the Topography, as well as an exposé of the adventurous, even scandalous, life of its author. The introduction also discusses the fraudulent publication of Sosa's Topography under another man's name.

Sosa's chronicle stands out for its complexity, vitality, and the sharpness of the author's ethnographic vision. No other account of captivity in this period offers such a detailed and dynamic tableau of Algerian society at the end of the sixteenth century.

Review Quotes

"An Early Modern Dialogue with Islam: Antonio de Sosa's 'Topography of Algiers' (1612) edited by Maria Antonia Garces, translated by Diana de Armas Wilson . . . Translation and study of a work by a Portuguese cleric who was captured by Algerian corsairs in 1577 and held for more than four years in captivity, where he was a fellow prisoner of Cervantes' and became the latter's first biographer; documents Sosa's authorship of the Topografia, which was previously attributed to Diego de Haedo." --Chronicle of Higher Education

"Early modern historians are always pleased--indeed, excited--when they encounter firsthand descriptions and information regarding a particular society or country or, in this case, a prominent Mediterranean city: Algiers, a city that was literally a synthesis of Muslim, Jewish, and Christian inhabitants. Wilson (who did the translation) and Garcés (who did the introduction and detailed notes) have produced exactly that with Sosa's Topography of Algiers (1612). . . . Sosa's writings provide a fascinating, unmatched picture of one of the most important cities in the Mediterranean, and Wilson and Garcés have done a masterful job in making it available in English." --Choice

"Long overdue, this translation and edition of Sosa's Topografia is an absolute gem. Sixteenth-century Algiers was the Mediterranean's cross-roads, a meeting point and melting-pot for Christians, Muslims, and Jews. Sosa's survey literally brings this important city to life. It is all there: architecture, economy and religion, plus pirates, renegades, slaves, marriage customs, and more. Little escapes Sosa's eye, and this discerning friar even offers comments on such details as make-up and dress. There is no better source for understanding the human complexity of the early modern Mediterranean world, and both Armas--for the translation--and Garces--the introduction and notes--deserve credit for their masterful achievement. Scholars, students, and teachers, even the general reader will be forever in their debt." --Richard L. Kagan, Johns Hopkins University

"This is a truly significant text for all scholars of early modern Europe, worthy of their greatest interest and attention. When published, An Early Modern Dialogue with Islam: Antonio de Sosa's Topography of Algiers (1612) will mark a watershed in our understanding of the synergies of power and the nature of shifting identities along the borderlands of sixteenth-and seventeenth-century Europe; it will stand as an example of interdisciplinary and cross culture criticism at its best." --E. Michael Gerli, University of Virginia

"Equal parts history, ethnography, and literary work, the first book of Sosa's Topograph is a welcome addition to the body of translated primary sources on Muslim, Christian, and Jewish encounters in the early modern Mediterranean . . . historians and literary scholars alike will find this edition to be a rich resource for the study of cross-cultural exchange in early modernity and will likely await with interest the next translated an annotated installments of Sosa's Topographia, e Historia general de Argel." --Sixteenth Century Journal

"An Early Modern Dialogue with Islam is two books in one: an indispensable historical resource for those interested in the early modern Mediterranean world, and a critical page turner, showing us the very best of what skilled, patient literary scholarship can produce." --Modern Language Notes

"[An Early Modern Dialogue with Islam] combines an extraordinarily erudite study with a long-due translation of the first part of the remarkable account of cultural, economic, social and political practices in Algiers, illuminating perceptions about North African renegades and the hardships of captivity at the time of Cervantes's traumatic experience." --This Year's Work in Modern Language Studies

"In the growing scholarship on European perceptions of the Islamic Other and relations between Europe and the Ottoman Turks, Garces's study and Armas Wilson's translation offer an important . . . perspective from Iberia on the Mediterranean contact zone linking Christian Europe and Islamic North Africa. This outstanding translation and meticulously researched introductory study and edition will capture the attention of a wide range of scholars, including those pursuing research on the Moriscos of Spain exiled in North Africa, and those scholars seeking links between crosscultural Christian-Muslim interaction in the Mediterranean, and European-non-European exchanges in the New World." --Renaissance Quarterly

"The current political turmoil in the region and continuing controversies regarding Islam and the West render the publication of An Early Modern Dialogue with Islam all the more timely and, ultimately, of broader contemporary and thematic relevance to scholars, non-specialists, and students as well." --Hispania

"Two Cervantes scholars, María Antonia Garcés and Diana de Armas Wilson, have joined forces to prepare the first English edition and translation of Antonio de Sosa's 1612 Topografia de Argel. This eyewitness view of the place and its people transports the reader to the North African city as Cervantes would have known it. . . . I commend both editor and translator for their sensitive and honest contextualization of the inter-religious rivalry that Sosa manifests." --Cervantes

About the Author

Dr. Antonio de Sosa, 1538-1587, was a Spanish priest who after being enslaved in Algiers became the first biographer of Miguel de Cervantes. As a captive he wrote Philip II constantly begging him to pay his ransom and included detailed reports on the ports and ramparts of Algiers--which were included in the Typografia.