Like the Egyptian Sonallah Ibrahim late last year, Moroccan writer Ahmed Bouzfour has rejected a literary prize awarded by the government. The prize (for which Bouzfour tied with writer Ouafae Amrani) was intended to honor his latest collection of short stories, Qounqous. Bouzfour rejected the prize in order to protest the government’s incapability to deal with Morocco’s literacy problem. The refusal is costly to him: the $8,000 prize is a hefty sum in a country where a schoolteacher makes about $300 a month. Bouzfour’s fiction has been translated into Spanish, French, and English.
Who is Laila Lalami
Laila Lalami is the award winning and best selling author of six books.
What books has Laila Lalami written?
Laila has written the novels, Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits, Secret Son, The Moor's Account, The Other Americans, and The Dream Hotel.
What awards has Laila Lalami won?
Laila Lalami has won the American Book Award, the Arab American Book Award, the Hurston-Write Legacy Award, a Guggenheim a Harvard Radcliffe Fellowship, and a British Council Fellowship. Her work has also been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Booker Prize, the Women's Prize, and the Edgar Allan Poe Award.