Secret Son, by Laila Lalami

Laila Lalami's Secret Son is indeed a remarkable novel. I read her Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits a few weeks ago, and immediately turned to Secret Son. It takes place in Casablanca. This decade. Written in English. It is a gripping read about class and gender and identity.

The strange thing about it is that, while it may have a wider appeal, it also assumes a familiarity with Moroccan politics. I wonder who her audience really is. I read an interview with her in TelQuel - http://www.telquel-online.com/378/mage_culture_378.shtml It is a good interview - she comes across as an appealing person. (And she makes recommendations to other books to read - e.g., Absurdistan and The United States of Africa.)

Personally, however, I would love to interview her and ask: Who are you thinking of as you write? Who are you imagining as your readership? She leaves words in Moroccan Arabic untranslated, makes references to nuanced matters, invokes a history not likely familiar to an American reader. Maybe that's the way it is any time you read a novel by a novelist from another country.... Yet I'm not sure. I read Saramago's All the Names and Seeing not knowing much of anything about Portuguese history or politics.... Perhaps that affected my appreciation for the novels? I don't know.

Maybe it has to do with translation. Secret Son is written in English. She begins the novel with a quote from Gustavo Pérez Firmat: "The fact that I am writing to you in English already falsifies what I wanted to tell you."

But, again, is she writing to Moroccans and Maghrebis living in North America? To Morocco watchers in the media and academia? To US policymakers seeking to "understand" contemporary Morocco? I wonder what would happen if Secret Son was translated into Moroccan Arabic and/or French - and was read in Morocco.....