Laila Lalami
Novelist
Moroccan writer best known for her books The Moor's Account, The Other Americans, and Conditional Citizens: On Belonging in America. She is known to write historical fiction and essays which address questions of colonialism, class and identity.
She studied at Mohammed V University in Rabat, Morocco before getting an MA in Linguistics at University College London. Her first book, a collection of short stories called Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits, was published in 2005.
The Moors Account was a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction and winner of the 2015 American Book Awards. The Other Americans was a finalist for the 2019 National Book Award for Fiction and won the 2019 Joyce Carol Oates Prize.
She went to college in England in 1990. She moved to Los Angeles in 1992. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and cat.
She was influenced by the writing and thinking of philosopher Edward Said.