Moraes Zogoiby (1957- )

Moraes Zogoiby, the novel's narrator, known as the "Moor," is the scion of the de Gama-Zogoiby dynasty of spice merchants in Cochin, India. He introduces himself as a "determinedly ungodly Indian Christian," who finds himself, as the novel begins in Spain, just thirty-six years of age but worn out from a life lived too fast. What this enigmatic introduction means will be gradually be spelled out. He is the only son of a scheming tycoon, Abraham Zogoiby, and his eminent artistic wife, Aurora, both deceased. He is a skeptical, bashful, and self-loathing personality, hampered by asthma, which runs in the family, and a malformed right hand of which he is ashamed much of his life. More important than either malady is another birth defect: a rare condition that causes him, from the moment of conception, to age physically at twice the rate of his chronological age...