Laila Lalami

Laila Lalami (2015)

Laila Lalami ( Arabic ليلى العلمي, DMG Lailạ̄ l-ʿAlamī , * 1968 in Rabat , Morocco ) is an American writer from Morocco.

Life

Laila Lalami studied English at Mohammed V University and was able to successfully complete a master's degree in linguistics at University College London in 1990 with a grant from the British Council . After two years as a journalist in her home country, she moved to Los Angeles in 1992 , where she later received her PhD in linguistics from the University of Southern California .

She started writing as a cultural and literary critic. Several of her articles have been published in national newspapers such as the Boston Globe , Los Angeles Times, and the New York Times . As a writer she made her debut in 1996 with the short story collection Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits , which was later translated into six languages. She published her first novel, Secret Son , in 2009. She celebrated her big breakthrough with her second novel The Moor's Account , which tells the story of Estevanico , the first African to cross America. The book became a huge hit with critics, and she won the American Book Award and the Arab American Book Award , among others , and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and the Booker Prize .

Works (selection)

• Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits (2005)
• Secret Son (2009)
• The Moor's Account (2014)
• The Other Americans . Pantheon, 2019

Web links

Commons : Laila Lalami  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Laila Lalami in the bibliographic database WorldCat
• Laila Lalami in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Official website