Laila Lalami – författare

* LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2025 ** A READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK MARCH 2025 *‘A gripping, Kafkaesque foray into an all-too-plausible future’ JENNIFER EGAN‘So cleverly conceived, so relevant, that everyone should read it and sweat’ THE TIMES‘Extraordinary’ RUMAAN ALAM‘Absolutely unputdownable’ SANDRA NEWMANSara is returning home from a conference abroad when agents from the Risk Assessment Administration pull her aside at the airport. Using data from her dreams, their algorithm has determined that she is at imminent risk of harming her husband. For his safety, she must be transferred to a retention centre, and kept under observation for twenty-one days.But as Sara arrives to be monitored alongside other dangerous dreamers, she discovers that with every deviation from the facility’s strict and ever-shifting rules, their stays can be extended – and that getting home to her family is going to cost much more than just three weeks of good behaviour.Then, one day, a new resident arrives, disrupting the order of the facility and leading Sara on a collision course with the very companies that have deprived her of her freedom.The Dream Hotel is a gripping speculative mystery about the seductive dangers of the technologies that are supposed to make our lives easier. As terrifying as it is inventive, it explores how well we can ever truly know those around us – even with the most invasive surveillance systems in place.

Finalist for the National Book Award 2019 An Observer, Literary Review and Time Book of the Year'One of the most affecting novels I have read. Subtle, wise and full of humanity' The TimesLate one spring night, Driss Guerraoui, a Moroccan immigrant in California, is walking across a darkened intersection when he is killed by a speeding car. The repercussions of his death bring together a diverse cast of characters, deeply divided by race, religion and class. As the characters tell their stories and the mystery unfolds, Driss’s family is forced to confront its secrets, a town faces its hypocrisies, and love, in all its messy and unpredictable forms, is born.'A state-of-America family saga told as a slow-burn detective story' Observer'Exceptionally rich' Sunday Times'Confirms Lalami's reputation as one of our most sensitive interrogators, probing at the faultlines in family and the wider world' Financial Times

* Winner of the American Book Award * Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2015 * A Finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction *'An absorbing story' SALMAN RUSHDIE'Rich, vivid and gripping' GUARDIAN'Feels at once historical and contemporary' NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEWIn 1527, hundreds of settlers arrived on the coast of modern-day Florida and claimed the region for Spain. Within a year of navigational errors, disease, starvation and fierce resistance from indigenous tribes, only four survivors remained. Three were nobleman, whose stories found their way into the official record. The fourth was known only as Estebanico, a vibrant merchant from Barbary forced into slavery and a new name, reborn as the first African explorer of the Americas. This is his story: a journey across the great swathes of the New World, where would-be conquerors are transformed into humble servants, fearful outcasts into healers, and the silenced into storytellers.

* LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2025 ** A READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK MARCH 2025 *‘A gripping, Kafkaesque foray into an all-too-plausible future’ JENNIFER EGAN‘So cleverly conceived, so relevant, that everyone should read it and sweat’ THE TIMES‘Extraordinary’ RUMAAN ALAM‘Absolutely unputdownable’ SANDRA NEWMANSara is returning home from a conference abroad when agents from the Risk Assessment Administration pull her aside at the airport. Using data from her dreams, their algorithm has determined that she is at imminent risk of harming her husband. For his safety, she must be transferred to a retention centre, and kept under observation for twenty-one days.But as Sara arrives to be monitored alongside other dangerous dreamers, she discovers that with every deviation from the facility’s strict and ever-shifting rules, their stays can be extended – and that getting home to her family is going to cost much more than just three weeks of good behaviour.Then, one day, a new resident arrives, disrupting the order of the facility and leading Sara on a collision course with the very companies that have deprived her of her freedom.The Dream Hotel is a gripping speculative mystery about the seductive dangers of the technologies that are supposed to make our lives easier. As terrifying as it is inventive, it explores how well we can ever truly know those around us – even with the most invasive surveillance systems in place.

* LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2025 ** A READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK MARCH 2025 *Sara is at the airport, travelling home from a work conference. Out of nowhere she’s pulled aside by agents from the Risk Assessment Administration. Their algorithm has determined that she’s an immediate threat to her husband, and must be kept under observation at a retention centre for twenty-one days.The evidence? Data collected from her dreams.When she arrives at the centre, she discovers that each deviation from their strict and ever-changing rules – loitering in the hallway, a ‘non-compliant hairstyle’ – results in her stay being extended. Desperate to return to her family, Sara must make a choice. Does she play by their rules, or risk taking matters into her own hands?