iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Laila Lalami @lailalalami.com · 15/09/2026

People of Santa Fe! Come on out this Thursday 9/17 to hear me read from and talk about The Dream Hotel (now out in paperback)! 6 pm at Collected Works bookstore.

Flyer advertising Laila Lalami’s reading at Collected Works Bookstore in Santa Fe on 9/17

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Laila Lalami @lailalalami.com · 11/09/2026

"'Never forget' became a rallying cry. I heard it chanted at vigils, walked past it graffitied on walls, saw it tattooed on the neck of a man waiting ahead of me in line at the grocery store." But what--and who--are we supposed to remember? Re-upping this piece: www.nytimes.com/2021/09/10/o...

In the United States, Sept. 11 led directly to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, the passing of the Patriot Act, the Authorization for Use of Military Force, the use of warrantless surveillance programs, and special registration of immigrants and foreign students from Muslim countries. Outside the United States, the attacks served as justification for the 20-year war in Afghanistan; the invasion and occupation of Iraq; the indefinite detention of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay; the use of torture at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere; the killing of thousands of U.S. and foreign service members; the periodic bombing of Pakistan, Yemen, Syria and Somalia; the deaths of some 800,000 people, including 335,000 civilians; and the displacement of an estimated 38 million people.

At each step in this parade of horrors, we were reminded that the United States was attacked on Sept. 11. The terrible wound of that day was left open, causing pain and anger that lasted for years. In that continually grieving state, the public was perhaps more willing to accept what it might not have otherwise — security theater at our airports, constant surveillance, bombs being dropped on wedding parties in Afghanistan.

The fact that the United States itself went on to attack, and wreak even greater violence against innocent civilians around the world, was largely omitted from official narratives, as it was in the museum. This erasure is not accidental. After the initial phase of fighting, the Pentagon did not release regular and precise reports of civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. “We got out of the body count business years ago,” Mark Kimmitt, a retired U.S. Army brigadier general and former State Department official, said in

But the erasure of the wars proved lucrative for some. The U.S. government outsourced almost every aspect of the war effort to private military contractors like KBR and Blackwater, including the housing, feeding and clothing of troops. Companies like Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin reaped tens of billions of dollars in profit. Waste and abuse were rampant. One study found that the U.S. Army had spent $119 million annually to lease 3,000 cars in Afghanistan, at a cost of $40,000 per car. Another investigation revealed that TransDigm, an aircraft parts supplier, had profit levels of as much as 4,000 percent on some spare parts. Even when the Pentagon’s internal auditors identified overcharges, the contracts were often paid out anyway.

That Sept. 11 represented a chance to make a buck was not what most of us had in mind when we saw the tribute posters that went up shortly after the towers came down. But from the commercialization of the phrase “never forget,” which appears on pens, shirts, mugs and baby onesies, to the privatization of the war effort, which shifted billions of taxpayer dollars into corporate coffers, Sept. 11 became a business. The museum engages in this type of transaction as well. A cheese platter in the shape of the United States, with hearts marking the sites of the terrorist attacks, was removed from sale in 2014, after a public outcry at the vulgarity of the display. But the museum store continues to sell a variety of other items, including toy police cars.

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Laila Lalami @lailalalami.com · 29/08/2026

This is theft, plain and simple.

Headline: U.S to Take Control of Much of Venezuela’s Proven Oil Reserves

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Laila Lalami @lailalalami.com · 16/08/2026

The racial coding here is barely coded. This man was fine with deportations until his own wife was detained. Despite all the evidence in the news, the videos on TikTok, the witness statements, many many many people think (like him) that ICE won't touch their families. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/16/u...

Mr. Jindra considered himself a MAGA patriot until his wife’s detention.

“She did not jump a wall, she did not swim a river,” he said. “She came in Trump’s beautiful, big front door.”

Ms. Bobreneva arrived on a tourist visa in late 2021, extended it twice following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and applied for asylum in 2022. She met Mr. Jindra in March 2025 and by December they were married.

“It was your storybook romance,” he said.

Picture of Galina Bobreneva and Brent Jindra / NYT

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Laila Lalami @lailalalami.com · 11/08/2026

The Dream Hotel is now out in paperback! Read it, talk about it with your book group, ask for it at the library, add it to your syllabus, loan it to a friend, etc. I’m grateful for all of it.

A stack of books by Laila Lalami. From top to bottom: The Dream Hotel, Conditional Citizens, The Other Americans, The Moor’s Account, Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits, Secret Son.

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Laila Lalami @lailalalami.com · 16/09/2025

Congratulations to the winners of this year's American Book Awards! 🎉 🎉 🎉 www.beforecolumbusfoundation.com

The 2025 American Book Award Winners

Kaveh Akbar
Martyr!: A Novel (Knopf)
Amy M. Alvarez

Makeshift Altar: Poems (The University Press of Kentucky)

Marie-Helene Bertino
Beautyland: A Novel (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Percival Everett
James: A Novel (Doubleday)
Marcela Fuentes
Malas: A Novel (Penguin Books)
Fady Joudah
[...] Poems (Milkweed Editions)
Stacey Levine
Mice 1961 (Verse Chorus Press)
Sarah Lewis

The Unseen Truth: When Race Changed Sight in America (Harvard University Press)

Tomiko and Ryokuyo Matsumoto, and Nancy Matsumoto, Editor
By the Shore of Lake Michigan (UCLA Asian American Studies Center)

Sharon McMahon

The Small and the Mighty: Twelve Unsung Americans Who Changed the
Course of History, from the Founding to the Civil Rights Movement (Thesis)

Claire Messud

This Strange Eventful History: A Novel (W. W. Norton & Company)
Maceo Montoya and Javier O. Huerta
Imaginative Possibilities: Conversations with Twenty-First-Century
Latinx Writers (University of Pittsburgh Press)

m.s. RedCherries
mother (Penguin Books)
Danzy Senna

Colored Television: A Novel (Riverhead Books)
A.B. Spellman, and Lauri Scheyer, Editor

Between the Night and Its Music: New and Selected Poems (Wesleyan University Press)

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Laila Lalami @lailalalami.com · 16/09/2025

Next up! If you find yourself in Winston-Salem, come on out to the Bookmarks Festival, where I'll be appearing alongside Deborah Jackson Taffa to discuss 'Dystopian Realities' on Saturday, September 27, 12.15 pm!

Flyer says:

National Book Foundation Presents
Dystopian Realities
Saturday, September 27, 12:15 pm EDT
Winston-Salem, NC

Laila Lalami, 2019 Fiction Finalist.
Deborah Jackson Taffa, 2024 Nonfiction Finalist
Ruth Dickey, Moderator

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Laila Lalami @lailalalami.com · 16/09/2025

Here is what the Trump administration has asked of UCLA. None of this has anything to do with combating antisemitism. It is all about control of the campus and capture of its culture. www.kqed.org/news/1205611...

According to the groups, the Trump administration’s demands include restricting campus protest rights as well as:

unfettered government access to faculty, student and staff data
an official statement that the UC does not recognize transgender identity
a ban on gender inclusive restrooms and locker rooms
the cessation of gender affirming care for minors
an end to diversity scholarships
cooperation with immigration enforcement, which appears to include giving ICE access to UC hospitals
the creation of viewpoint policies for the admission of international students

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Laila Lalami @lailalalami.com · 06/09/2025

In Washington, DC for the National Book Festival and heard about the protest against the occupation, so we went! Great signs, great atmosphere!

Sign says: Remember, only you can prevent fascism

Front of the march against the occupation

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Laila Lalami @lailalalami.com · 20/07/2025

When I’m waiting for reviews of my new book.

Zohran Mamdani making fun of the NY Post in his latest viral video. Caption says, “Inshallah, on the front page.”

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Laila Lalami @lailalalami.com · 28/05/2025

Saddened to hear that Ngũgĩ' wa Thiong'o has passed away. I remember coming across The River Between in a literature class in Morocco three decades ago, and feeling an immediate sense of kinship and recognition. His work gave me permission to dream, to speak, to write. RIP to one of the greats.

Photo of two writers sitting at a signing table, with name cards laid out before them, at the L.A. Times Festival of Books in 2018. On the left is Laila Lalami (me) in a white qamis, and on the right is Ngũgī wa Thiong'o in a brown jacket and light-colored shirt. Both of us are turning our gaze toward the camera.

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Laila Lalami @lailalalami.com · 10/05/2025

The Trump administration is welcoming white South Africans as refugees while trying to close a deal to deport immigrants who already live here to Rwanda.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — The U.S. government has officially granted 54 Afrikaans South Africans, white descendants of mainly Dutch colonizers, refugee status and they are expected to land in the U.S. on Monday May 12, three sources with knowledge of the matter have told NPR. The sources did not want to be named because they work for the U.S. government and fear for their careers.

U.S. authorities on Thursday were trying to arrange a charter flight that would bring the South Africans to Dulles Airport near Washington, D.C., on Monday morning, but it's not clear if they will be allowed to land there. If that is not possible then they will be sent on commercial flights, according to the sources.

Rwanda is in talks with the Trump administration to take in migrants deported from the United States, the central African nation’s foreign minister said late Sunday.

It was unclear if a deal would involve migrants who had already been deported or those who will be in the future, but any agreement could make Rwanda the first African country to enter into such an accord with the United States.

Rwanda’s foreign minister, Olivier J.P. Nduhungirehe, said on Sunday that his country’s government was in “early stage” talks about receiving third-country deportees from the United States.

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Laila Lalami @lailalalami.com · 15/04/2025

Readers of Detroit! I will be coming to your city on Saturday, April 26 for a reading and signing at the Arab American National Museum. 4 pm. Come on out and bring a friend or five!

Flyer advertising Zawaya Book Launch: The Latest from Arab American Writers. Celebrate new works by amazing authors Hadeer Elsa, Laila Lalami, Tarik Dobbs and Youssef Rakha. 4-6 pm. In person at the Arab American National Museum and Online via Livestream. Free with RSVP.

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Laila Lalami @lailalalami.com · 13/04/2025

Computer, show me “consciousness of guilt.”

Gretchen Whitmer, in the oval
office, hiding her face behind a blue folder.

The day after the inauguration, Ms. Whitmer penned a handwritten letter — which has not been previously reported — congratulating Mr. Trump, saying she looked forward to working together and praising his support for the auto industry in his first address, according to a person who relayed the text of the letter. Ms. Whitmer included her cellphone number and invited Mr. Trump to call her if she could be of any help to him.

The outreach worked for her, but it came at a cost.

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Laila Lalami @lailalalami.com · 10/04/2025

Delighted to share that The Dream Hotel is the April selection of WNYC’s Get Lit! with All of It book club. I hope you’ll join me on at the New York Public Library (455 5th Avenue) on May 6th for an interview with Alison Stewart, to be followed by a musical performance by Imal Gnawa.

Flyer advertising WNYC’s Get Lit With All of It book club selection, The Dream Hotel, with musical performance by Imal Gnawa. The flyer shows the author’s portrait and the book cover. The caption at the bottom says Wednesday, May 6, 2025. 6 pm. Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library.

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Laila Lalami @lailalalami.com · 08/04/2025

Readers of San Antonio! Come hear me talk about The Dream Hotel at the Book Festival this Saturday! In conversation with Dalia Azim at 2.30 pm. ☀️📚

Colorful flyer advertising Laila Lalami’s appearance at the San Antonio Book Festival on Saturday, April 12, at 2.30 pm, in conversation with Dalia Azim. Bottom part of the flyer shows the cover for The Dream Hotel, along with the author photo. The blurb says, “What do you sacrifice for convenience? What is your For You Page feeding you? Is the algorithm fallible? (Yes.) From Laila Lalami—the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Aware finalist—comes a riveting and utterly original novel about one woman’s fight for freedom, set in a near future where even dreams are under surveillance.”

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Laila Lalami @lailalalami.com · 31/03/2025

If you find yourself in San Francisco this weekend, please come out to my conversation with KQED’s Mina Kim on Saturday at the Night of Ideas! Entrance is free, but you need to reserve tickets. www.kqed.org/event/5064

Decorative illustration, spelling out Night of Ideas in white and blue.

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Laila Lalami @lailalalami.com · 23/03/2025

If you find yourself in Albany, come say hi! I’ll be speaking about The Dream Hotel on Tuesday, March 25 at 4.30 pm, Campus Center West Auditorium, U Albany.

Flyer showing Laila Lalami on the left and the cover for The Dream Hotel on the right.

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Laila Lalami @lailalalami.com · 17/03/2025

Los Angeles! I’m going to be at the legendary Book Soup tonight, talking about The Dream Hotel with @antoinewilson.bsky.social. 7 pm. Come say hi!

Flyer advertising an event on The Dream Hotel at Book Soup on March 17, 7 pm, with Laila Lalami (me) and Antoine Wilson.

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Laila Lalami @lailalalami.com · 06/03/2025

Howdy, Boston! Come on out to Harvard Bookstore, where I’ll be on conversation with Claire Messud about my new novel, The Dream Hotel! 7 pm!

Flyer advertising an event at Harvard Bookstore. On the left are pictures of Laila Lalami and Claire Messud, who will be in conversation tonight. On the right is the book cover for The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami. At the bottom are details of the event: Thursday, March 6, 7 pm. At Harvard Bookstore Store. Cambridge, MA. Learn more: Harvard.com

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Laila Lalami @lailalalami.com · 04/03/2025

Today is the day! THE DREAM HOTEL is out in the U.S. and U.K. wherever books are sold. And in an extraordinary bit of good fortune, it was selected for the Women’s Prize longlist, also announced today!

U.S. cover for THE DREAM HOTEL by Laila Lalami, Pulitzer Prize finalist.

U.K. cover for THE DREAM HOTEL by Laila Lalami. “Kafkaesque” - Jennifer Egan, “Extraordinary” - Rumaan Alam

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Laila Lalami @lailalalami.com · 21/02/2025

I talked to Publishers' Weekly about my longtime crush (Franz Kafka.) www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/...

Side-by-side pictures of two authors. On the right is tortured genius Franz Kafka, in a suit and striped tie, looking dignifiedly at the camera. On the left is me, in a short-sleeved black dress, looking wearily at the photographer as if to say "Can we get this over with?"

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Laila Lalami @lailalalami.com · 17/02/2025

My new novel, THE DREAM HOTEL, is out in 2 weeks! It follows a woman whose dreams are used by an algorithm to predict that she will commit a crime. Releasing a book in the middle of all this [waves hand] isn't optimal, but I worked hard on it and I'd be grateful for your preorder! shorturl.at/if3CE

Book cover for The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami. The cover shows a small figure standing in an orange hallway leading to an ominously dark room. The title and author name appear in white on a purple background.

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Laila Lalami @lailalalami.com · 15/02/2025

Infuriating how media organizations continually buy the framing that Trump is selling. This isn’t a “DEI purge.” It’s a purge that aims to SHRINK AND RESEGREGATE THE RANKS OF GOVERNMENT.

News alert from the Washington Post: Internal documents show how DOGE wrote the playbook for Trump’s DEI purge — and whom they plan to fire next.

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Laila Lalami @lailalalami.com · 07/02/2025

✈️ Tour info for The Dream Hotel! Save the date if you live in DC, Boston, Austin, New York, Tulsa, Palo Alto, L.A., Seattle, Albany, Middletown, San Antonio, and Gainesville! I’d love to talk to you about fiction, dreams, and surveillance technology, and also sign your books!

Tour flyer for THE DREAM HOTEL. Split into two columns, one orange, the other violet. The orange side shows the book cover, a caption that says "Laila Lalami On Tour" and the author's photo in a medallion size. The purple side shows the tour dates: March 5 in DC, March 6 in Cambridge, March 8 in Austin, March 11 in New York, March 12 in Tulsa, and March 14 in Menlo Park.

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Laila Lalami @lailalalami.com · 02/02/2025

How one Chicago community successfully thwarted an ICE raid.

When ICE authorities in dark SUVs arrived in Chicago’s Little Village, a predominantly Hispanic enclave of around 70,000, to begin enacting President Trump’s aggressive deportation agenda, another operation began. The community launched its own counteraction: an urgent system of text chains, social-media groups and calls between local leaders. The response was nearly instantaneous.

“Videos are coming in, text messages, people are hitting the street following them throughout the neighborhood until they left,” said Alderman Michael Rodriguez. In the end, the officers made no arrests, Rodriguez said.

Federal officials say the Trump administration's efforts to ramp up arrests is running into a challenge in some places: a robust outreach effort by activists to methodically track ICE’s movements and educate migrants on what to do when immigration officials come to town. That includes not answering questions or letting anyone inside without a proper warrant. [Source: WSJ, via library]

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Laila Lalami @lailalalami.com · 01/02/2025

🚀🚀🚀The Dream Hotel comes out in just 4 weeks! The novel follows a woman who is detained by government agents because her dreams suggest she will soon commit a crime. Kafkaesque? Yes. But hopeful? Also yes. You can pre-order a signed copy from a lovely indie bookstore here: shorturl.at/mTq4E

Cover of The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami, showing a small figure on an orange background entering a blackened doorway. The title and author name are printed in white, agains a lovely purple background. A white burst on the left says: preorder your signed and personalized copy today!

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Laila Lalami @lailalalami.com · 24/01/2025

Thank you to all the editors who've included THE DREAM HOTEL in their Spring 2025 book lists! I couldn't easily screenshot all of them, but I'm thankful for each one. THE DREAM HOTEL is out March 4. Have you preordered a copy? Link in bio.

Screenshot of the NYT Book Review podcast cover, showing The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami.

Books to watch for in 2025, from the Washington Post. Picture shows 8 books, Including The Dream Hotel.

Time Magazine's most anticipated books of 2025. Screenshot shows nine books, including The Dream Hotel.

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Laila Lalami @lailalalami.com · 20/01/2025

The skies in Marrakech yesterday, and this morning in New York. A kind of whiplash that feels appropriate for today.

Blue skies seen through the branches of orange trees in Marrakech

A street in New York, under a thin blanket of snow.

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Laila Lalami @lailalalami.com · 23/12/2024

⭐⭐Another starred review for THE DREAM HOTEL, this one from Publishers' Weekly!! Have you preordered your copy? Your future self will thank you. www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/717465...

Cover of The Dream Hotel, by Laila Lalami, with a star from PW

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Laila Lalami @lailalalami.com · 18/12/2024

Well, at least the name is appropriate.

Elite universities often present themselves as meritocracies that admit the best and brightest. The motion filed Tuesday, which draws from years of speeches at exclusive gatherings, depositions and internal university reports, shows officials bowing to financial pressures to admit wealthy students over potentially more qualified candidates.

Discovery in a separate court case about race-based preferences in college admissions revealed Harvard University had a “Z list,” a route through which weaker, but wealthy or connected, applicants could gain admission.

In the past few years several schools, including Amherst College, have gotten rid of legacy admission. Additionally several states, including California, have banned the practice.

Source: WSJ: Lawsuit Reveals How Colleges Really Talk About Rich Applicants

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Laila Lalami @lailalalami.com · 14/12/2024

If you’re looking holiday gift ideas, here are some books I loved this year: Percival Everett’s James, Jamie Quatro’s Two-Step Devil, Rumaan Alan’s Entitlement, Dinaw Mengestu’s Someone Like Us, Danzy Senna’s Colored Television. Bonus: new titles I’m looking forward to reading in 2025!

A stack of books. In order from bottom to top: Rumaan Alam, Entitlement. Dinaw Mengestu, Someone Like Us. Jamie Quatro, Two-Step Devil. Marie-Helene Bertino, Beautyland. Percival Everett, James. Omar El Akkad, One Day Everyone Will Have Been Against This. Vauhini Vara, Searches. Mosab Abu Toha, Forest of Noise. Rob Franklin, Great Black Hope. Natalie Zemon Davis, Trickster Travels.

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Laila Lalami @lailalalami.com · 09/12/2024

What I wrote in The Nation in 2011, when the Tunisian people threw out Ben Ali. "The three biggest lessons of their uprising have already been delivered far and wide. To the Arab dictators: you are not invincible. To the West: you are not needed. And to the Arab people: you are not powerless."

It is too early to tell whether Mohamed Ghannouchi's interim government will be democratic. The appointment of the activist Slim Amamou as state secretary for youth and sports seems inspired, but the inclusion of several Ben Ali allies, particularly at the Interior Ministry, does not make for an auspicious start.
Nor does the exclusion of parties banned under Ben Ali. The Tunisian people do not yet seem content with the government that is shaping up, and there are reports of continuing protests.
The revolution is not over. In fact, it may have just begun.
The Tunisian people are expecting justice for those who died, free and fair elections, and a new political order. But the three biggest lessons of their uprising have already been delivered far and wide. To the Arab dictators: you are not invincible. To the West: you are not needed. And to the Arab people: you are not powerless.

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Laila Lalami @lailalalami.com · 18/11/2024

🚀🚀🚀 Here is the cover for the UK edition of my new novel, THE DREAM HOTEL, out in March 2025 with Bloomsbury UK. Isn't it beautiful? I'm so chuffed, as the Brits say. Read more about it and preorder here: www.bloomsbury.com/uk/dream-hot...

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Laila Lalami @lailalalami.com · 18/11/2024

Apparently Elon Musk posted that the Treasury Department should go to someone who will disrupt things. The WSJ editorial board is like, whoa, whoa, buddy. This is Treasury, not the Education Department.

That’s why it’s strange to hear Elon Musk lobby Mr. Trump that the next Treasury secretary shouldn’t be someone who favors “business as usual.” What he means by that isn’t clear beyond favoring one personality over another, and Mr. Musk may not know. Fiscal and monetary policy aren’t his specialty.

Our concern isn’t personalities so much as Mr. Musk’s apparent belief in economic-policy disruption for its own sake. Treasury isn’t the Education Department, or Defense, and financial markets don’t want to trade one form of policy uncertainty for another. Steady and knowledgeable economic policy hands are needed if Mr. Trump wants to succeed.

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Laila Lalami @lailalalami.com · 17/11/2024

Jaw-dropping detail from a story about a Pennsylvania county that swung to Trump. It features a pastor and her congregants, at least one of whom is undocumented. You'll never guess the ending.

A pastor, eyes closes, holds her arms aloft as she prays. The caption says: "[Trump] is always talking about God and the Bible,” she said through an interpreter. “He only has God in his mouth.”

Black and white photo of congregants praying. The caption says: "She also supported Trump’s immigration policies. There are church members who are undocumented, she said, but she was convinced they would be deported only if they commit crimes."

Black and white photo of a man at prayer. The caption says: "One of those undocumented members of the congregation is Wadan Fernandez, who has relatives in Hazleton and said he came to the United States about two years ago to start a new life. He has overstayed his tourist visa and has been working in construction and other jobs."

The same man at prayer. The caption continues: “I love Mr. Trump,” Fernandez said. “Of course he could send me back at any moment, but if he did, I would still love him.”

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Laila Lalami @lailalalami.com · 16/11/2024

Advance review copies of THE DREAM HOTEL are here! The novel tells the story of a woman who is put under surveillance because her dreams show she is going to commit a crime. Out March 2025 with Pantheon Books. Tell a friend or three! www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/717465...

An Advance Review Copy of THE DREAM HOTEL by Laila Lalami. The cover has a violet background, an orange frame, and a black center, with a human poised at the edge. A hand with a polished thumbnail holds the copy. A cookie can be seen in the background.

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Laila Lalami @lailalalami.com · 10/11/2024

Jill Lepore in the New Yorker. www.newyorker.com/magazine/dis...

Between 1920, when American women got the right to vote, and 1980, when Ronald Reagan was elected, women were more likely to vote for Republicans than for Democrats, but only slightly. That changed with Reagan’s G.O.P., which abandoned the Equal Rights Amendment and committed itself to overturning Roe v. Wade. The Equal Rights Amendment failed in 1982 because college-educated feminists underestimated the sincerity of the political commitment of women who opposed it. Democrats reduced a much broader campaign for women’s rights to the fight to defend abortion; in 2022, they lost that fight, too. The premise of the Democratic strategy in 2024 was that abortion would get women to the polls and somehow, miraculously, that would translate into a vote for Harris. It did not. Abortion-protection measures passed in seven states and lost in three. As has been the case in opinion surveys since the early nineteen-seventies, Americans voting in 2024 favor abortion in the first trimester but not afterward. About half of Trump voters, like about half of Harris voters, believe that abortion should be “legal in most cases,” according to a CNN exit poll. Women went to the polls and voted to protect the right to abortion, within limits, and then, owing to a thousand other concerns, two in five of them voted for Trump.

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Laila Lalami @lailalalami.com · 08/11/2024

If you find yourself in Cambridge 11/13, please come hear me in conversation with James Wood at the Mahindra Institute's Writers Speak series. Details here: mahindrahumanities.fas.harvard.edu/event/writer...

Event flyer showing a portrait of the author, with 'Writers Speak' on the right hand side, the author's name in the center, and "in conversation with James Wood" on the left.

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Laila Lalami @lailalalami.com · 24/10/2024

🚨🚨🚨My new novel, THE DREAM HOTEL, will be released by Pantheon in March 2025. It follows a woman who is under surveillance for a crime she has yet to commit. Cover design by the incomparable Jack Smyth. Find out more & pre-order at the link in bio.

Book cover for The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami.

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Laila Lalami @lailalalami.com · 10/10/2024

Thrilled to finally be able to share this news: my new novel, THE DREAM HOTEL, is coming out with Pantheon Books in March 2025! Hop on over to People magazine to read more about the story and read an exclusive excerpt. Pre-order at the link in bio! people.com/laila-lalami...

On the left, a portrait of the author. On the right, a book cover with the title "The Dream Hotel."

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Laila Lalami @lailalalami.com · 01/10/2024

“Look, it’s just an incursion. We don’t think it’s an escalation or an invasion. And yes we’re supplying unlimited weapons to one side, but there’s really nothing we can do do to stop this war.”

NYT headline: US officials believe Israel will not conduct full invasion of Lebanon.

NYT headline: Why the world’s biggest powers can’t stop a Middle East war.

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Laila Lalami @lailalalami.com · 11/09/2024

This book is incredible. Must-read even if you’re acquainted with the French movie from the 80s (or its remakes) because of the perspective Zemon Davis brings to questions of truth and trickery.

Cover of “The Return of Martin Guerre” by Natalie Zemon Davis.

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Laila Lalami @lailalalami.com · 08/09/2024

It turns out management CAN agree to a 25% pay raise for its workers! (If the alternative is a crippling strike over a 40% pay raise.) www.wsj.com/business/air...