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Orange Prize for Fiction 2010
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Secret Son
Laila Lalami
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synopsisCasablanca’s stinking alleys are the only home nineteen-year-old Youssef El-Mekki has ever known. Raised by his mother in a one-room home, the only glimmer of hope in his frustrated dream of escape is offered by the film stars flickering on the local cinema screen. Until, that is, the father he thought dead turns out to be very much alive.
A shady businessman with wealth to burn, Nabil is disenchanted with his daughter and eager to take in the boy he never knew. Soon Youssef is installed in his penthouse and sampling the gold-plated luxuries enjoyed by Casablanca’s elite. But as he leaves the slums of his childhood behind him, he comes up against a stark reality…Laila Lalami
was born and raised in Morocco. Her work has appeared in The Boston Globe, The Los Angeles Times, The Nation, The New York Times, The Washington Post and elsewhere. She is the recipient of a British Council Fellowship and a Fulbright Fellowship. She was short-listed for the Caine Prize for African Writing (the “African Booker”) in 2006 and for the National Book Critics’ Circle Nona Balakian Award in 2009. She is the author of one short story collection, Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits and is Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at the University of California Riverside. This is her first novel.
http://lailalalami.com/
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