Cairo Magazine - Straddling Gibraltar

Today, Moroccan-American author Laila Lalami is more famous as a blogger than as an author. Her blog www.moorishgirl.com, established in 2001 and dedicated to literary news and in particular to Arab and Arab-American literature, has earned Lalami recognition and a devoted readership (see sidebar for a review of the blog). But with the publication of her first novel Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits (Algonquin Books, 2005), the balance may be about to tip.

Hope is a slim novel or, more accurately, a collection of related stories. They focus on the lives of a group of Moroccans who try to immigrate illegally to Spain. There is Faten, a young Islamist; Halima, a mother of two with an abusive husband; Aziz, who leaves his wife and best friend behind; and Murad, who tires of giving tourists tours of Tangiers. In the book’s opening chapter, all these characters end up falling out of a capsized dingy and barely manage to swim to the Spanish shore, only to be immediately caught by agents of the Guardia Civil.

The rest of the book is divided into “before” and “after” stories, which describe how the characters chose to make the dangerous trip that night and what happened to them afterwards.

Readers may get the feeling that the sections were originally written as individual short stories and then assembled into a book; in some cases the connections between them feel artificial.

The “before” stories are pitch-perfect evocations of the lives of poor Moroccans. It’s a world in which everyone eats ghaif (pancakes of fried dough), drinks mint tea, smokes cigarettes and sits in crowded and poorly furnished homes (whose sole treasure may be a TV or a microwave, bought with money sent from abroad). Unemployment hangs over them all, a constant curse, worrying the women and frustrating the men.

The “after” stories, trying for resolution, are weaker. Transforming Faten from an Islamist to a prostitute is a melodramatic choice. And it seems very unlikely that a woman in her position could afford to refuse help from a man (as she does with one of her Spanish customers) because she senses his Orientalist tendencies. Murad’s realization that he wants to be a writer also comes across as a contrived silver lining. In both cases, we sense the author making points through her characters, which takes the life out of them.

But the book is still a pleasure to read. Lalami has a remarkable command of simplicity. She keeps her prose sparse and evocative; her characters are fleshed out by a few telling gestures and expressions. Her descriptions of physical action (as in a scuffle between Halima and a corrupt judge, or Murad’s dash away from the Spanish police) are perfect, told in breathtakingly swift and economical detail.

When Lalami does indulge in imagery, it packs a punch. She suggests the dangers of the trip across the Strait of Gibraltar with a vivid image: “The waves are inky black, except for hints of foam here and there, glistening white under the moon, like tombstones in a dark cemetery.” In another scene, she describes Faten: “She had amber-colored eyes, plump lips and skin so fair that it seemed as though all the light in the room converged upon it. In other words, she was beautiful.” Lalami doesn’t reveal this about Faten until well into the story, so that her beauty is as much of a surprise to readers as it is to some of the other characters.

Recent years have seen a number of bloggers get book deals. Lalami’s case is different. While her blog may have helped her find a publisher, she has clearly been a dedicated writer for many years. Her book is not an extension of her blog. Rather, her writing career looks to be an entirely separate, and successful, endeavor.