Laila Lalami

Audience: About 35.
Anxiety index: 7 (out of 10).
Book given away: Minaret, by Leila Aboulela.
Surprise guest(s): My friend Megan C., whom I haven’t seen since grad school.
No. of Moroccans who said hello:2

One of my favorite bookstores in the U.S. is the Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle; it was a special treat to have a reading here. In addition, bookseller Rick Simonson has been very supportive of Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits (going as far as to give copies of the book to people coming through town) so I felt I was among friends when I arrived. On top of that, the Arab Center of Washington co-sponsored the event, and they did a wonderful job getting the word out.

I read from the middle of the book, the first scene in “Better Luck Tomorrow.” One of the most pleasurable parts of readings for me is the Q&A–I’m always interested to hear what people have to say. This time, I had a couple of questions about the choice of writing fiction in English. Even though it isn’t my native language, it is the language in which I function–I communicate with it, I read in it, I think in it. After a few years of living in the States, I found that my fluency in my own native language wasn’t at the level where I would want it to be in order to write well. Now, the strange thing is that when I write my characters, I hear their dialogue in my ear in Arabic, and so the challenge for me is to write in a way that I can retain the rhythm of the Moroccan language as well.

Later, I did some shopping at the store, picking up a copy of Eduardo Galeano’s Memory of Fire trilogy, on Rick’s recommendation. It provides a Latin American view on the making of the New World, through short vignettes describing major and minor historical events of the 15th century onward.

I wanted to apologize to readers who’ve gone to Barnes & Noble to look for Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits and weren’t able to find it. There was a glitch in the chain’s computer system; the release date was listed as November 7th instead of October 7th. I’m told that this has been corrected, and Hope should appear in those stores within the next few days. You can also, of course, order it online from B&N.com.

Meanwhile, Borders is experiencing some shipment delays. The cartons of books didn’t leave the warehouses in time to make it to stores by the official release date of October 7th. This, too, is being fixed. So, if you normally shop at Borders, try your store again in the next few days and you should find it. Or go to Borders.com.

And of course you can always find the book at all independent bookstores and online retailers.

I want to thank the many readers who’ve brought this to my attention. You guys rock! I appreciate your support very much. In fact, I’d like to give a free, autographed copy of Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits to the first reader who sends me an email with the subject line “HODP” and a street address.

Update: Todd C. from Vermont gets the signed copy.

The second stop on my book tour for Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits will be tonight, in beautiful Seattle. Here are the details:

Laila Lalami
Tuesday the 11th
7:30PM
Elliott Bay Book Co.

Hope to see you there!

Despite the persistent rumors that Julian Barnes’s Arthur and George would win the 2005 Man Booker Prize, the award last night went to John Banville’s The Sea. There’s lots of coverage in the British press. The Times, for instance, provides a glimpse of the judging process:

The chairman of the judges, Professor John Sutherland, described The Sea as “a masterly study of grief, memory and love recollected”. He hailed the quality of Banville’s writing: “You feel you’re in the presence of a virtuoso. In his hands, language is an instrument.”

But he acknowledged that the melancholic subject-matter made it a “slit your throat novel” which was perhaps too difficult for some readers – and some of the judges. Professor Sutherland had to cast the deciding vote after the judges were split at the end of their one-hour judging session between Banville and Ishiguro.

“There were six novels that were all good – and then a bloody guillotine is coming down on your head in an hour. The discussion could have gone on for three days. There’s something abnormal about these novels competing. It’s very sad that you have to have a gladiatorial combat to get people to read good novels.”

Over at the Independent, Boyd Tonkin throws a hissy fit over the choice of Banville.

Yesterday the Man Booker judges made possibly the worst, certainly the most perverse, and perhaps the most indefensible choice in the 36-year history of the contest. By choosing John Banville’s The Sea, they selected an icy and over-controlled exercise in coterie aestheticism ahead of a shortlist, and a long list, packed with a plenitude of riches and delights.

And that’s just the nice part. He’s pretty pissed at John Sutherland, the chair of the judges, whom he accuses of distorting the views of fellow judges back in 1999. Read the full piece here. For a radically different take, you can also hear from the winner himself, in this BBC report:

Banville said: “Even if I’d lost I’d still think it was a good year for the Booker. It’s been a good year for fiction.

“It’s nice to see a work of art winning the Booker Prize – whether it’s a good work of art or a bad one, it’s what I intended it to be.

“I’m very encouraged that people have responded to a book that’s very carefully crafted.”

We know at least one reader who is ecstatic about the win. You can also read Mark Sarvas’s interview with Banville, conducted just a few weeks ago, over at his blog: Part 1, part 2, and part 3.

The New Zealand Herald has a profile of Caryl Phillips, whose intriguing new novel, Dancing in the Dark, is a fictionalized account of the life of Bert Williams, a West Indian actor who made a fortune performing in blackface in the early 1900s.

The Faustian nature of this bargain intrigued Phillips, who has written about race and identity his entire career. “The more I read about him, the more I thought to myself: what on earth was he thinking?” Phillips takes a sip of lemonade and cringes. “I mean, what on earth would make somebody go against the grain � and continue to perform and embrace the mockery of this image?”

Some of the answers can be found in Dancing in the Dark, which turns Williams’ life into a three-act of novelettes. The first section describes Williams’ journey to the stage. The second introduces his rise to fame, his weakness for drink, his sexless marriage, and the problems that developed with his African-American co-star, George Walker. In the final section, Williams has a short, lonely ride at the top, a stranger to everyone, including himself.

On a related, but non-fictional front, I recently received an advance review copy of Mel Watkins’s Stepin Fetchit, a biography of Lincoln Perry, the actor who made a name for himself in the 1920s and 30s by playing Uncle Toms and other figures of comic relief for white America. I haven’t gotten to it yet (still buried under a pile of assignments) but hope to read the new Caryl Phillips novel at the very least.

While I was at Bread Loaf this summer, I went to many readings–faculty, staff, students–and heard lots of different pieces, fiction, poetry, and non-fiction. One of the most memorable was a strange, stunning and wonderful poem by Cincinnati poet Matt Hart. Even after all this time I still remember the poem very well. I found out later that it appeared in a chapbook called Revelated. I don’t read as much poetry as I could (or should) but this is one collection that I definitely plan on getting. Check it out.

Those of you in Portland tonight can check out this reading at Reading Frenzy, a.k.a. the smallest bookstore in America, which is right next to the largest bookstore in America.

Tuesday, October 11th, 7pm
John Crow’s Devil & Wide Eyed
Reading with Marlon James and Trinie Dalton
More info here.

Things have taken a turn for the bizarre as Morocco, whose citizens used to be deported from Europe, is now deporting would-be immigrants from its own territory. The AP reports that a chartered plane full of Senegalese immigrants has left Oujda airport, after the events of last week, when hundreds stormed the barriers of the Spanish presidios in the north of Morocco. (Confused yet? Follow these links: 1, 2, 3 and 4. )

For anyone interested in getting an autographed copy of Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits, but unable to attend one of the readings, the nice folks at Powells.com have some signed copies in stock.

When I came across news of the Arts in Morocco Festival on the Literary Saloon yesterday, my first thought was: Why am I the last one to find out? (My second thought was: Why wasn’t I invited? I want a free trip to Marrakesh! Just kidding. Really. I would’ve paid to be there.) The festival was held in what looks like lavish surroundings (Ksour Agafay or Agafay Palace), though unfortunately it doesn’t sound as though it was open to the public.

Over at the Independent, Boyd Tonkin appears to have thoroughly enjoyed the city (lucky bastard). He sounds genuinely surprised that one of Morocco’s best-known writers, Edmond Amran El Maleh, is Jewish, and notes, en passant, that Moroccan writers don’t (can’t) really have the kind of ‘navel-gazing conversations’ so often heard in literary circles.

But local voices soon mocked our narcissism to underline the tough realities of a country with 50 per cent literacy, fragile basic education (especially in rural areas) and scant resources to support the kind of splashy, glitzy book scene that the British always love to hate. “It was so curious to hear you talking,” teased the Marrakshi poet, editor and teacher Yassin Adnan. “It was as if you’re coming from another planet.” No arguing with that.

Adnan is also quoted in this Telegraph piece by Sam Leith, where he says:

What a luxury to be able to complain that you are getting publicity for your hairstyle rather than your nifty way with a caesura.

What an astonishment to exist in a world of government subsidy; of well-stocked bookshops; of extensive literary pages in newspapers; of a world in which the best writers make a living.

When you look for a publisher in Morocco, he said, you aren’t arbitrating between the competing attractions of a chic independent and one with the promotional muscle of TimeWarner: you are trying to find someone who will print your book without you paying for the privilege. The readership you can expect consists, like as not, of the friends to whom you give copies of your book.

Morocco’s literacy rate is 50 per cent. There is no government help. Your chances of being translated into French are slim; into English, microscopic (only 0.6 per cent of Arabic writing, I was told, gets Englished). The whole thing – in the context of our quarrel – put me in mind of Alan Bennett’s remark that asking him if he was gay was like asking someone who had just crawled across the Sahara desert whether they preferred Malvern or Perrier water. We all, rather, looked at our shoes.

What surprised me wasn’t Adnan’s statements, obviously, but rather Leith’s admission that he’d read so little Arabic literature (he cites Mahfouz and the One Thousand and One Nights.) I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Not that Leith could have read much if he’d wanted to: So little Arabic fiction is being translated, and what gets translated isn’t even reviewed in the papers. Arabic literature needs its own Medici.