In Honor of Arab American Heritage Month, CAMD presents Dr. Laila Lalami on Friday, April 21, at 8:30 p.m. in Kemper Auditorium.

Laila Lalami was born in Rabat and educated in Morocco, Great Britain, and the United States. She is the author of five books, including The Moor’s Account, which won the American Book Award, the Arab-American Book Award, and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. It was on the longlist for the Booker Prize and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. Her most recent novel, The Other Americans, was a national bestseller and a finalist for the Kirkus Prize and the National Book Award in Fiction. A timely and powerful novel about the suspicious death of a Moroccan immigrant, The Other Americans is at once a family saga, a murder mystery, and a love story, all of it informed by the treacherous fault lines of American culture.

Her essays and criticism have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, The Nation, Harper’s, the Guardian, and the New York Times. She has been awarded fellowships from the British Council, the Fulbright Program, and the Guggenheim Foundation and is currently Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at the University of California at Riverside. She lives in Los Angeles.

This event is free and open to the public.

Lalami's talk will be followed by a book signing; books will be available to purchase.