Moroccan-American Author Challenges Trump’s Immigration Policies in New Novel

As the daughter of an immigrant, the choice to write on issues related to the migration phenomenon was automatically imposed on Laila. In "The Other Americans", published in the United States by Pantheon Books in March 2019, the story partly surfs on an autobiography and recounts the life of Driss Guerraoui, Laila’s father, a Moroccan who arrives in the United States after the Casablanca riots in 1981. In the land of Uncle Sam, the disappearance of Driss, who dies in a car accident with unclear circumstances (he was hit by a car) and whose ins and outs will never be known, will turn everything upside down and mark the life of the author.

According to Jeune Afrique, "her recent publications in the American press make Laila Lalami one of the intellectuals at the forefront of the fight against the immigration policy of US President Donald Trump." Laila, who draws her strength from the effects of literature which, according to her, is a "means of resisting xenophobic frenzy," is enamored with the American left and never misses an opportunity to draw her pen and criticize the excesses of the American president.

Even if these novels are not yet translated into Arabic for the moment, Laila remains very connected to the news of her country. Moreover, her first novel published in 2005 testifies to this sufficiently. "Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits" recounts the story of a group of young Moroccans crossing the Strait of Gibraltar to reach Spain. This novel, according to Jeune Afrique, has "received good critical acclaim", even if Laila is most often presented as the author of The Moor’s Account published in 2014.

In this novel too, it is about Morocco. Indeed, Laila brings the reader to life the story of a journey from Africa to the Americas, through the adventure of Estebanico, a Moroccan black slave, who left Azemmour, on the Moroccan coast, for the Americas in the 16th century. The only black among the survivors of a shipwreck, Estebanico will not be allowed to speak to testify in order to enlighten his contemporaries on this drama, because of the color of his skin. It is this book in particular, moreover the object of several awards (the book was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction) which will have definitively installed Laila in the lineage of Moroccan writers who will not be forgotten anytime soon.