Laila Lalami is a writer and critic. She lives in Los Angeles.

Laila Lalami was born and raised in Morocco. She studied Linguistics at Université Mohammed-V in Rabat, University College London, and the University of Southern California. Her work has appeared … read more >

Secret Son Book Cover

Secret Son

For years, Youssef, a young man from a Casablanca slum, has heard his mother’s stories about his dead and respectably poor father, stories he used as inspiration for his own life.

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Hope and Other Dangerous Pursiots Book Cover

Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits

The news was relegated to the bottom of Le Monde’s online page—fifteen Moroccan immigrants had drowned while crossing the Straits of Gibraltar on a fishing boat.

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From the Blog

July 2nd, 2009

New Novel

I find myself these days taking a lot of notes for my new novel, but not quite daring to start...
July 1st, 2009

True Stories of Heartbreak

When my first book was sold, several fellow writers suggested I hire an independent publicist....
June 30th, 2009

Applebaum on Morocco

It almost never fails. When a Western reporter goes to Morocco to write about the process of...
June 29th, 2009

The Latest Coetzee

As regular readers of this blog know, I'm a huge fan of J.M. Coetzee, so I'm anxiously awaiting...