Instead, I look at the world through their eyes and write from their perspectives about what they are experiencing. I inhabit my characters without appraising them as good or bad people. Lalami: When I write fiction, I try as much as I can to suspend moral judgment. How did you approach the novel without antagonizing a character or particular societal or cultural group? JP: The Other Americans takes a very humane perspective in telling a complex story about the state of American society. The Jakarta Post spoke to Laila Lalami via email on The Other Americans, American society and the Iraq War. It was also longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for fiction the same year. Her third novel, The Moor’s Account, won the American Book Award, the Arab American Book Award and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in 2015. Lalami is herself an immigrant who was born in Rabat, Morocco, and moved to the United States in 1992. While solving the mystery of the murder, The Other Americans goes deeper into revealing who people actually are. Laila Lalami's The Other Americans: A Novel is entirely not a whodunit, even though the novel opens with the hit-and-run of a Moroccan immigrant that sets everything in motion in a quiet, small Californian town.įamily secrets are unearthed against the barren beauty of the Mojave Desert and Joshua Tree National Park, along with the hypocrisies and unrest that lurk within everyone's minds and hearts. By showing the genuine moments of emotional isolation experienced by both Anderson and A.J., the novel challenges the reader to consider the full emotional spectrum experienced by each character, instead of being more easily able to sort the characters into protagonists and antagonists.Sun, Ap 10:01 1497 db1d47cf6ffbed4060cffaa8733f80fc 1 Books #book,Book,America,Immigrants,immigration,writing,Laila-Lalami,The-Other-Americans,Bloomsbury Free

This feeling of isolation comes through for the characters who are racial minorities, including Nora, Maryam, Efraín, and Detective Coleman - and, perhaps surprisingly, the sensation of isolation feels just as strong for the characters in the novel who are white men, including Jeremy, Fierro, and Anderson and A.J.

With the possible exception of the gregarious Driss, virtually every major character in the novel feels largely isolated from both the family and larger community that surrounds them. The novel portrays isolation as a universal experience that can elicit a sense of empathy even for deeply flawed individuals.

Book the other americans