We welcomed Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist Laila Lalami to celebrate the release of her novel, The Dream Hotel, depicting a dystopian future where even dreams are under surveillance. Lalami was joined in conversation by Rumaan Alam, author of the bestselling novel Leave the World Behind.
Lalami tells the story of Sara, a woman fighting for her freedom from a retention center filled with women trying to prove their innocence. Classified as “dreamers,” Sara and these women are prevented from leaving as the facility’s rules continue to inexplicably shift. The arrival of a new resident disrupts the order of things, forcing Sara to collide with the very companies responsible for denying her freedom.
Known as the “maestra of literary fiction” (NPR), Lalami joined Alam to discuss the dangers of over-reliance on technology, the interrelated concepts of privacy and freedom, and whether even the most intense surveillance can ever capture the true essence of one’s humanity.
Featured Book
-
.
The Dream Hotel
By Laila Lalami
Published by Knopf Doubleday
Sara has just landed at LAX, returning home from a conference abroad, when agents from the Risk Assessment Administration pull her aside and inform her that she will soon commit a crime. Using data from her dreams, the RAA’s algorithm has determined that she is at imminent risk of harming the person she loves most: her husband. For his safety, she must be kept under observation for twenty-one days.
The agents transfer Sara to a retention center, where she is held with other dreamers, all of them women trying to prove their innocence from different crimes. With every deviation from the strict and ever-shifting rules of the facility, their stay is extended. Months pass and Sara seems no closer to release. Then one day, a new resident arrives, disrupting the order of the facility and leading Sara on a collision course with the very companies that have deprived her of her freedom.
Eerie, urgent, and ceaselessly clear-eyed, The Dream Hotel artfully explores the seductive nature of technology, which puts us in shackles even as it makes our lives easier. Lalami asks how much of ourselves must remain private if we are to remain free, and whether even the most invasive forms of surveillance can ever capture who we really are.
In Conversation
-
Laila Lalami
Laila Lalami
Laila Lalami is the author of five books, including The Moor’s Account, which won the American Book Award, the Arab-American Book Award, and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award; was on the longlist for the Booker Prize; and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Her most recent novel, The Other Americans, was a national bestseller, won the Simpson/Joyce Carol Oates Prize, and was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her books have been translated into twenty languages. Lalami’s writing appears regularly in the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, the Nation, Harper’s, the Guardian, and the New York Times. She has been awarded fellowships from the British Council, the Fulbright Program, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University. She lives in Los Angeles.
Photo Credit: Beowulf Sheehan
-
Rumaan Alam
Rumaan Alam
Rumaan Alam is the author of, most recently, Entitlement, as well as the New York Times bestselling Leave the World Behind, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and the novels Rich and Pretty and That Kind of Mother. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the New Yorker, and elsewhere. He lives in Brooklyn.
