For or Against: My Life as a Muslim in the West’s Gray Zone
Laila Lalami was born in Rabat and educated in Morocco, Great Britain, and the United States. She is the author of the novels Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits (2006), which was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award; Secret Son (2010), which was on the Orange Prize long list, and The Moor’s Account (2015), which won the American Book Award, the Arab American Book Award, and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. It was on the Man Booker Prize long list and was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Her essays and opinion pieces have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, The Nation, the Guardian, The New York Times, and in many anthologies. A graduate of Université Mohammed-V in Rabat, she also attended University College in London, and the University of Southern California, where she earned a Ph.D. in linguistics. She is the recipient of a British Council Fellowship, a Fulbright Fellowship, and a Guggenheim Fellowship, and is currently a professor of creative writing at the University of California at Riverside.
Lalami speaks on immigration, the Middle East and North Africa, Islam, Muslim women, and Arab uprisings. She also discusses race in America, especially forgotten histories, exploration, and cross-cultural encounters.