Laila Lalami was born and raised in Morocco. Her work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Nation, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of a Fulbright fellowship and was short-listed for the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2006. She lives in Los Angeles.
I live in Atlanta, where there are several megachurches. And I think it's great that people are going there, and that they're getting what they need. But some people need different things. Some people need intimacy, because faith and spirituality is a very intimate thing, and sometimes people need it done in small doses rather than in huge doses.
A young man born into poverty in Morocco finds his life taking a bizarre turn, when he discovers that his father is not dead, as he had always been told, but is in fact a prosperous businessman. In Laila Lalami's novel "Secret Son," Youssef winds up in a fancy apartment with all the comforts of a home he never knew. But, of course, they didn't all live happily ever after...
I live in Atlanta, where there are several megachurches. And I think it's great that people are going there, and that they're getting what they need. But some people need different things. Some people need intimacy, because faith and spirituality is a very intimate thing, and sometimes people need it done in small doses rather than in huge doses. 
