Laila Lalami is a renowned Moroccan-American novelist, essayist, and professor. She earned her licence ès lettres degree in Morocco and received a fellowship to study in the United Kingdom, where she earned an MA in linguistics.

In 1992, Lalami moved to the United States, completing a PhD in linguistics at the University of Southern California. She began publishing her writing in 1996. Her acclaimed first novel, composed of linked stories, was published in 2005.

In 2015, she was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction for her novel The Moor's Account (2014), which received critical praise and won several other awards, including the American Book Award, the Arab-American Book Award, and the Hurston Wright Legacy Award. The novel was also longlisted for the Booker Prize.

Her most recent novel, The Other Americans, became a national bestseller, won the Joyce Carol Oates Prize, and was a finalist for the National Book Award in Fiction. Lalami's works have been translated into twenty languages, and she has received fellowships from prestigious institutions including the British Council, the Fulbright Program, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University.

She currently resides in Los Angeles.