Laila Lalami

There is a insularity within American fiction even for adults. It's very tough for books in translation in the US.

— Laila Lalami

I [read] "The Book of Unknown Americans," which is by a friend of mine, Cristina Henriquez, and is about two Latino, immigrant…

— Laila Lalami

The ones that were relevant while I wrote my book were books like "Beloved" by Toni Morrison, which is based on a…

— Laila Lalami

“He needed time to adjust to real life, where heroes and villains could not be told apart by their looks or their…

— Laila Lalami

Every book leaves its mark on you. It might leave you hungry for that kind of book or you may be satiated,…

— Laila Lalami

A name is precious; it carries inside it a language, a history, a set of traditions, a particular way of looking at…

— Laila Lalami

In some ways, I think it's the closest that we come to the truth — is in the form of fiction.

— Laila Lalami

“His anger took many shapes: sometimes soft and familiar, like a round stone he had caressed for so long that is was…

— Laila Lalami

When I was a child, I was reading books filled with people different from me, all French, all foreigners. There was a…

— Laila Lalami

“It was a communion of pain, and no one in the city could pretend not to have heard it. The women had…

— Laila Lalami

“know now that these conquerors, like many others before them, and no doubt like others after, gave speeches not to voice the…

— Laila Lalami

There are writers I return to no matter what I'm working on, writers like the South African J.M. Coetzee. He has an…

— Laila Lalami

No one wrote better about the sin of pride, the corruption of power and the redemption of love. I will miss you,…

— Laila Lalami

Few [books] get translated and the ones that do have trouble making it into the mainstream. It's more likely that Americans will…

— Laila Lalami

Thing that was very different for me is that an American child's reading is filled with Americans.

— Laila Lalami

“Nothing new has ever happened to aq son of Adam, she said. Everything has already been lived and everything has already been…

— Laila Lalami

I read "The Conquest of New Spain" by Bernal Diz Del Castillo, which I recommend to a lot of people. He was…

— Laila Lalami

I also read a lot of nonfiction. I just got "Nixonland" by Rick Perlstein. I felt like what with everything that is…

— Laila Lalami

I began reading in French. I didn't read in English until high school.

— Laila Lalami

I love James Baldwin essays, but also his novels. I recently read "Another Country." I couldn't believe how ahead of his time…

— Laila Lalami

Historical novels, in particular, allow us to relive the past without the neatness of history, and with all the complexity of the…

— Laila Lalami

Immigration, a lexicon. You're a 'migrant' when you're very poor; 'immigrant' when you're not so poor; and 'expat' when you're rich.

— Laila Lalami

The universe had an odd sense of fairness; it took away things one did not want to give up, and then gave…

— Laila Lalami