Moor's Account (Lalami)

Author Bio
• Birth—1968
• Where—Rabat, Morocco
• Education—B.A., Universite Mohammed V; M.A., University College of London; Ph.D.,
   University of Southern California
• Awards—American Book Award
• Currently—teaches at the University of California, Riverside


Laila Lalami is a Moroccan American novelist and essayist. She was born and raised in Rabat, Morocco, where she earned her B.A. in English from Universite Mohammed V. In 1990, she received a British Council fellowship to study in England, earning her M.A. in Linguistics at University College London.

Lalami moved to the U.S. in 1992, and completed a Ph.D. in linguistics at the University of Southern California. She is currently a professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside.

Writing
Lalami began writing fiction and nonfiction in English in 1996. Her literary criticism, cultural commentary, and opinion pieces have appeared in the Boston Globe, Boston Review, Los Angeles Times, Nation, New York Times, Washington Post, Daily Beast, and elsewhere.
 
Her debut collection of stories, Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits, was released in the fall of 2005 and has since been translated into six languages. Her first novel, Secret Son (2009), was longlisted for the Orange Prize.

Her second novel The Moor's Account (2014) is based on Estevanico, the historic first black explorer of America and one of four survivors of the 1527 Narvaez expedition. The book won an American Book Award, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and nominated for the Man Booker Prize.

Lalami has received an Oregon Literary Arts grant and a Fulbright Fellowship. She was selected in 2009 by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/20/2015.)