6.8 /10 1 Votes6.8
Originally published 2009 | 3.4/5 Goodreads | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Similar Hope and Other Dangero, The Moor's Account, Black Mamba Boy, In Dependence, Your madness - not mine | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Moroccan american author laila lalami on her second novel secret son
Secret Son is the 2009 debut novel by Moroccan-American writer Laila Lalami. The novel is a bildungsroman that follows its main character, a Muslim youth named Youssef El Mekki, as he comes of age in the Casablanca slums.
Contents
- Moroccan american author laila lalami on her second novel secret son
- Interview laila lalami autor of the secret son novel
- References
Like other Arab-American novels, it focuses on themes related to class, gender, religion, migration/immigration and cultural conflict, with a particular emphasis on the cultural conflict that leads to radicalization of terrorists. Critic Steven Salaita compared the novel to Anouar Majid's Si Yussef. Lalami choose to write the novel in her third language: English, choosing not to use her first two languages: French and Arabic.
The New York Times gave the novel a moderately good review saying that "Secret Son is a nuanced depiction of the roots of Islamic terrorism, written by someone who intimately knows one of the stratified societies where it grows" but "Her English prose, although clean and closely observed, lacks music, and her similes can be predictable".