SOURCE: "Palimpsest Regained," in The New York Review of Books, Vol. XLIII, No. 5, March 21, 1996, pp. 13-16.

In the following review, Coetzee presents a deep analysis of The Moor's Last Sigh, noting its multilayered construction.

1.

The Moor's Last Sigh is a novel about modern India. Its hero is Moraes Zogoiby of Bombay, nicknamed by his mother "the Moor." But the famous sigh to which the title refers was breathed five centuries ago, in 1492, when Muhammad XI, last sultan of Andalusia, bade farewell to his kingdom, bringing to an end Arab-Islamic dominance in Iberia. Fourteen ninety-two was the year, too, when the Jews of Spain were offered the choice of baptism or expulsion; and when Columbus, financed by the royal conquerors of the Moor, Ferdinand and Isabella, sailed forth to discover a new route to the East.

From Sultan Muhammad a line of descent, partly historical, partly fabulous, leads to...