Cultivating Empathy And Humility

A Conversation with Laila Lalami

- Jocelyn Frelier

Laila Lalami is a professor of creative writing at the University of California at Riverside. After earning a BA in English from Mohammed V University in Rabat, she moved to the UK to complete an MA in linguistics and then the United States for her PhD at the University of Southern California. She has published four novels and received widespread critical acclaim. The Moor’s Account was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and selected as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Her most recent novel, The Other Americans, was released in March 2019.

Jocelyn Frelier: I was hoping we could start our conversation with a couple of questions I have about your most recent book, The Other Americans (see WLT, Spring 2019, 79). One of the things that struck me in reading the book was the wide variety of minority identities you feature in the book’s cast of characters. Without spoiling the plot too much, we see an Arab American family, an undocumented immigrant, a pair of veterans, and a black, female detective, to name a few. Could you tell us a little bit about how these characters came about and what the process of forming their identities was like?

Laila Lalami: Well, I would say that the process was very natural and organic. I knew I wanted to write a story about a young woman who returns home after her father is killed in a hit-and-run accident; I’m Moroccan, my protagonist is Moroccan, and I wanted this Moroccan family to be at the center of the story, so that was an immediate and easy choice.

As far as the other characters go, it’s important to note that the story is set in California—one of the most diverse states in the nation. I live in Los Angeles, where 40 percent of the residents are foreign-born, and it seemed natural that the book would reflect that.