Or it could be because they deeply and passionately believe in the ideology of a particular group.

'Or they might do it simply for that fact that this is a group that gives them three square meals a day and before that, they couldn't have that. 'Some of them might do it because they have finally found a group that gives them a sense of identity,' she says. In this section of her novel, Lalami explores why young people join such groups and become terrorists.

Now aware of the stark differences between the lives of the rich and poor, Youssef becomes an easy target for a local Islamic fundamentalist group that wants to recruit him for a terrorist attack against a liberal writer. That elite tends to think and treat its people in the same way as the colonial power used to treat them.' In many other places after the colonial powers left, they left behind them an elite. Now, whether those kinds of differences exist in other countries in North Africa and the Middle East? Yes, of course. 'And it is that kind of sharp contrast that fills him with anger, that fills him with resentment. 'Youssef, in this book, has the opportunity to live both kinds of lifestyle, which is not something that many people get to do, to experience both things,' Lalami explains. He starts to play the role of the privileged son until a reversal of fortune sends him back to the slum. Youssef's father seems eager to connect with the son he never knew and Youssef enters the luxurious world of Morocco's upper class. 'But in the process of going find him, a lot of events happened that sort of shaped this personal story and make it also political story.'Įxploring potentially dangerous social divides 'So he decides to go find him ,' Lalami says. He also discovers that in this class-conscious society, he is the illegitimate son of an upper class man and a woman far below his status. Then, Youssef discovers the truth: that his father is still alive and not a teacher, but a wealthy businessman. 'She had told him that his father was a fourth-grade school teacher who was very respected and beloved in the city of Fez, that he died on the day of Eid when Youssef was only 2 years old,' Lalami says. He has always had a feeling that she was hiding something, but he didn't know what. The novel's main character, Youssef Mekki, lives in a tin-roofed shack in Casablanca with his mother. The book examines how class differences and social injustice contribute to a sense of alienation and desperation among youth. Secret Son, Moroccan-born author Laila Lalami's debut novel, is a work of fiction inspired by a reality - the social, political, religious and economic complexities of contemporary Morocco.

Secret Son by Laila Lalami