Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Dream Hotel, Laila Lalami, is fascinated by the extractive power of technology: ‘Techno-capitalism has infiltrated our lives to such an extent that our only real break from it comes when we sleep. I began to wonder what might happen if that kind of extractive power were applied to the world of dreams.’
First Draft is our interview column, featuring authors and other prominent figures on books, reading, and writing.
Our questions are italicized.
What books or kinds of books did you read growing up?
As a young child, my first exposure to books was through French comics. I would spend hours on the sofa every day, completely enraptured by The Adventures of Tintin, Spirou and Fantasio and Asterix et Obelix. Then at some point in middle school, I moved on to adventure novels like The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne. I was used to seeing European characters in the books I read, a situation so normalized that I didn’t realize it was imbalanced until I was about twelve or thirteen, when I began to read adult fiction, especially works by Moroccan authors like Driss Chraibi, Leila Abouzeid, Tahar Ben Jelloun and Mohamed Choukri, who wrote about the world as I knew it. That opened up new horizons.
You grew up in Morocco before pursuing graduate studies in the United Kingdom and the United States. What memory from your hometown do you cherish most?
There are so many. The call to prayer, which moves with the seasons and gives a wonderful rhythm to the days; the coffee shops that line the avenues and stay open from early in the morning to late at night; and the way people everywhere care for alley cats, feeding them and giving them a warm place to sleep.
What’s the first book you read that made you think you wanted to be a writer?
It wasn’t one specific book. I think it was the pure joy I felt while reading that gave me the urge to tell stories.
Sudden leaps in technology often promise a utopian future but usually deliver something that isn’t all that different from the past.
What’s the last thing you read that changed your mind about something?
Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault. This book altered how I think about control and incarceration.
Your 2014 novel, The Moor’s Account, won both the American Book Award and the Arab American Book Award. It was also longlisted for the Booker Prize and named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. What was your process for writing this book?
Writing The Moor’s Account was a journey of discovery. I didn’t know much about the Spanish conquest of the Americas and felt ill-equipped to take on a historical epic, but I really couldn’t resist the story of Mustafa al-Zamori, who was nicknamed Estebanico. He was an enslaved man from Azemmour, on the northwest tip of Africa. In the early sixteenth century, he somehow found himself swept up in an expedition bound for Florida. I was intrigued by the fact that al-Zamori was neither a white conqueror nor an indigenous man, but rather an observer to their sudden and violent encounter. I was also intrigued by the fact that he left relatively little trace in the historical record compared with the other survivors. So, I took a took leap of faith, so to speak, and imagined what his account of the expedition might be. The novel took about five years to complete.
Looking back, what’s one thing you might revise/do differently if you were to write it again?
I wouldn’t change anything about it.
How did your approach to writing change while working on The Other Americans, a finalist for the National Book Award in Fiction?
I started working on The Other Americans in 2014, and all I knew was that I wanted to do something very different from The Moor’s Account—nothing involving historical research and no formal first-person narration. I had in mind a young woman who is coping with the grief of losing her father in a mysterious hit-and-run accident. The story kept expanding, bringing in not just her family but also other members of the small desert town where she grew up. At some point, I realized the novel could only be told by including the voices of these other characters, using a kind of alternating first-person narration. It was great fun to experiment with a different mode of storytelling.
You recently released The Dream Hotel, a novel that ‘artfully explores the seductive nature of technology, which puts us in shackles even as it makes our lives easier.’ Why did you want to tell this story?
The premise for The Dream Hotel came to me at the same time as The Other Americans, though I had to wait until the latter was finished before I could work on it. Techno-capitalism has infiltrated our lives to such an extent that our only real break from it comes when we sleep. I began to wonder what might happen if that kind of extractive power were applied to the world of dreams. The Dream Hotel is set in the near future and follows Sara Hussein, a museum archivist and busy mother of twins. One day, on her return home from a conference in London, she is arrested by agents of the Risk Assessment Administration because her dreams suggest she will commit a crime. She is taken to a ‘retention centre’, where she is to be held under observation for twenty-one days, but with every deviation from the facility’s strict rules, her stay is extended.
I was used to seeing European characters in the books I read, a situation so normalized that I didn’t realize it was imbalanced until I was about twelve or thirteen.
What’s the most interesting thing you’ve read or learnt about technology while working on this book?
At the micro-level: the mere presence of a cell phone in a student’s field of vision can negatively affect their focus and performance, even if it is not in use. At the macro-level: sudden leaps in technology often promise a utopian future but usually deliver something that isn’t all that different from the past.
What’s one thing about readers’ reactions to Dream Hotel that surprised you?
Well, I certainly didn’t expect that the book would be published as Donald Trump would return to office and immediately embark on a program of mass deportations. The early scenes in the novel, which take place in an airport, have unsettled a lot of readers.
You’re a professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside. What books do you require students to read before or while taking your class?
It depends on the class! But I teach books from a wide range of literary genres and styles, including novels by Chinua Achebe, J. M. Coetzee, Franz Kafka, Toni Morrison, Zakes Mda, José Saramago, Edwidge Danticat, Marguerite Duras and Yoko Ogawa.
And what’s a book every African student should read before leaving university?
The Wretched of the Earth and White Skin, Black Masks by Frantz Fanon
What advice would you give to young authors in Africa and the African Diaspora?
If you believe in the story you want to tell, don’t give up on it. Don’t compromise it.
Which three books on Morocco should everyone be reading at this moment?
For Bread Alone by Mohamed Choukri, Year of the Elephant by Leila Abouzeid and The Simple Past by Driss Chraïbi.
What’s the best or most important book you’ve read so far this year?
The best book I have read so far this year is The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt.
What is your favourite topic to write or read about these days?
Traveling circuses of the early twentieth century, which began to disappear as motion pictures became popular.
The mere presence of a cell phone in a student’s field of vision can negatively affect their focus and performance, even if it is not in use.
What are you currently working on?
I’ve just begun taking notes for a new novel, which I’ll only say probes at the boundary between identity and performance.
Question from Hamza Koudri: What would you like to be the legacy you leave behind?
That I lived an ethical and creative life.
Bonus: Please suggest a question for a future author’s First Draft.
What is your writing routine?
Who do you think we should interview next?
Nii Ayikwei Parkes⎈
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