LAILA LALAMI was born in Rabat and educated in Morocco, Great Britain, and the United States. She the author of four novels, including The Moor's Account, which won the American Book Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and The Other Americans, which was a Los Angeles Times bestseller and a finalist for the National Book Award. Her essays and criticism have appeared in The Nation, Harper's, the Washington Post, and the New York Times. She has received fellowships from the British Council, the Fulbright Program, and the Guggenheim Foundation and is currently a professor of creative writing at the University of California at Riverside. She lives in Los Angeles.