A Memorandum for the President of the Royal Audiencia and Chancery Court of the City and Kingdom of Granada

Conquered in 1492 and colonized by invading Castilians, the city and kingdom of Granada faced radical changes imposed by its occupiers throughout the first half of the sixteenth centuryincluding the forced conversion of its native Muslim population. Written by Francisco Nunez Muley, one of many coerced Christian converts, this extraordinary letter lodges a clear-sighted, impassioned protest against the unreasonable and strongly assimilationist laws that required all converted Muslims in Granada to dress, speak, eat, marry, celebrate festivals, and be buried exactly as the Castilian settler population did. Now available in its first English translation, Nunez Muley's account is an invaluable example of how Spain's former Muslims made active use of the written word to challenge and openly resist the progressively intolerant policies of the Spanish Crown. Timely and resonantgiven current debates concerning Islam, minorities, and cultural and linguistic assimilationthis edition provides scholars in a range of fields with a vivid and early example of resistance in the face of oppression.

Vincent Barletta is assistant professor of medieval Iberian literature at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is the author of Covert Gestures: Crypto-Islamic Literature as Cultural Practice in Early Modern Spain, winner of the 2007 La corónica International Book Award