Written by: Giles Milton
Submitted By: Paul Reid
This is an extraordinary real-life account of Thomas Pellow, a Cornish cabin boy who is captured by North African slave traders and spends the next twenty-three years of his life in captivity. Forced to convert to Islam, he endures many trials and tribulations under the rule of the brutal yet dreadfully fascinating Sultan Moulay Ismail. Pellow rises up the ranks in the service of the Sultan, eventually marries a Muslim girl and they have a child together. However, he never forgets about England and makes a number of failed escape attempts, risking his life on each occasion, until his eventual rescue by an Irish sea-captain. This is an absorbing, gripping and moving story of one man's quest for freedom and of the harrowing fate of all those slaves who never made it.
