Welcome to the MoroccanCulture Blog

A Moroccan tale of immigration


Anna Reguero
Staff writer



(February 25, 2008) — Only about 9 miles separate Morocco from Spain across the Strait of Gibraltar. Laila Lalami's book Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits opens with Murad, a tourist guide in Morocco, looking longingly across the distance, wondering how there could be such a divide in worlds over such a short distance. His plight is charted along with three other characters' as they take an inflatable motor boat illegally to Spain, in pursuit of a better life.

With illegal immigration a hot political issue as the presidential election approaches, Lalami's book is a topical selection for this year's Writers & Books event "If All of Rochester Read the Same Book ..." The program hosts book discussions all around Rochester starting today and ending in May, along with a series of movies made in or about Morocco. Lalami will visit in person at book readings, question-and-answer sessions and book signings at the end of March.

While the United States is the largest recipient of immigrants in the world, Spain is second. People travel across Africa to Morocco for the chance to cross over.

"It's really kind of sobering. You realize how the discourse on immigrants is strikingly similar even across these vast distances and different countries," says Lalami. But this wasn't an influence on her story.

"I wasn't writing of it at all thinking of the story in political terms," she says. "I was rather stunned after I finished the book and gave it to a friend to read and she said, 'This is a political book.'"

Her novel tells the personal lives of her characters and the emotions around their decision to immigrate. The boat trip to Spain is successful for some but not for others, who are deported to Morocco. Before telling us of their fate, Lalami backtracks to tell the story of what forced each to risk their lives, from economic strains to social and educational mishaps.

Lalami makes no decided stand on immigration but manages to humanize the issue, spotlighting the advantages as much as the disadvantages. She touches on the trend of Muslim youths turning toward conservative religion and doesn't shy away from how living in a different culture changes an individual.

"It speaks to my own ambivalence as to whether people who immigrate in that way are better off," she says. Lalami recalls she was inspired by reading stories about people taking boats to Spain and became enthralled at this because of the huge risks involved. "It's the highest risk you can take," she says.

Lalami is a native of Morocco, leaving only to pursue a master's degree in London, and finally came to the United States for her doctorate at the University of Southern California.

"I know if you had asked me 20 years ago if I'd be where I am today, I never thought I would be an immigrant," she says. "I was a student and the plan was, I was going to go to graduate school and I would come back and be a professor. ... Things don't turn out the way you expect. That's something that definitely resonates with me."

Lalami is now, in addition to being a novelist, a professor at the University of California-Riverside. Her latest book, to be published next year, The Outsider, is also set in Morocco, but this time it aims to tackle the political issue of liberalism and fake liberalism she feels is at the heart of politics in Morocco.

"I believe in fiction that doesn't shy away from the issues of the day," she says.

For a full schedule of "If All of Rochester Read the Same Book ..." events, go to www.wab.org.

AREGUERO@DemocratandChronicle.com