Laila Lalami

Laila Lalami (Arabic: ليلى العلمي‎, born 1968) is a Moroccan American novelist and essayist. Lalami was born and raised in Rabat, Morocco, where she earned her B.A. in English from Université Mohammed V. In 1991, she received a British Council fellowship to study in England, and she went on to complete a M.A. in Linguistics at University College London. After graduating she returned to Morocco and worked briefly as a journalist and commentator. I... more

Laila Lalami (Arabic: ليلى العلمي‎, born 1968) is a Moroccan American novelist and essayist. Lalami was born and raised in Rabat, Morocco, where she earned her B.A. in English from Université Mohammed V. In 1991, she received a British Council fellowship to study in England, and she went on to complete a M.A. in Linguistics at University College London. After graduating she returned to Morocco and worked briefly as a journalist and commentator. In 1992 she moved to Los Angeles where she earned a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Southern California. Lalami switched to writing fiction and nonfiction in English in 1996. She has published literary criticism and political essays in The Boston Globe, Boston Review, The Los Angeles Times, The Nation, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and elsewhere. She became the first Moroccan author to publish a book of fiction written in English with a major commercial press in the United States. Her debut collection of stories, Hope and... less