I think we're often shown in the news almost exclusively as a law enforcement issue. On wanting to tell a different kind of immigration story than the ones that are often told on the news 1 country in the world? Does it mean that it has the best health care system? Does it mean that it has the best educational system? Does it mean that it's achieved the most perfect record on human rights ever?' 'What does it really mean for America to be the No. 'One of the things that struck me about America when I started living in it is how easily Americans accepted the idea that their country was the best country in the world,' she said. Lalami explained that, for her, patriotism required a constant questioning, and re-evaluation. In May 2018, she appeared on NPR's Weekend Edition to talk about what patriotism means to her. Lalami, who was born in Rabat, is an immigrant herself. 'By conveying it from these different perspectives, my hope was that readers would get different ideas about immigration.' 'It just seemed to me that it was impossible to capture the complexity of the immigrant experience through just the one perspective of the man who dies at the beginning of the book,' Lalami explains. The first-person accounts form a mosaic of race and class in America. The narrators include the dead man himself, his wife, his adult daughter, a man who witnessed the crash, an Iraq war veteran, a detective, and others. The book begins with a Moroccan immigrant who is killed by a speeding driver in a hit and run. Laila Lalami's new novel The Other Americans is told from the perspective of nine different narrators who have one thing in common: They've all 'had the experience of dislocation,' Lalami says. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title The Other Americans Author Laila Lalami

The other americans laila lalami