Laila Lalami tackles surveillance and resistance

The Moroccan-American writer was inspired by the opacity of big tech's data collection for her novel The Dream Hotel

- Gabrielle Chan

In her latest speculative fiction novel, Moroccan-American author Laila Lalami imagines a world in which dreams can mark one as a threat.

In The Dream Hotel, protagonist Sara is pulled aside at the Los Angeles airport and detained in a high-tech facility. A new mother of twins, she has done nothing criminal. Her subconscious, though, suggests she might commit a crime.

The unsettling premise is for a world 20 years from the present, where even one's most private thoughts can be monitored and used by the authorities as evidence.

But the dystopian future she imagines, Lalami suggests, may already be here.

Speaking to The Sunday Times over a Zoom interview, she is thoughtful and measured, her voice calm and deliberate.

"I think we all know that our phones collect a lot of data about us, and by that design, data collection is made invisible," she says, recalling an unprompted Google notification she received, suggesting she leave for yoga class.

"I had never googled what time of day I went to yoga. But of course, the company follows my movements. It knew I was running late and it was trying to remind me."

She recounts the incident with a wry smile, but her concern is unmistakable.

It was a peek behind the curtain of technological surveillance for Lalami. This sparked her novel's central question: What if dreams, too, became data?

The experience of Sara, a Moroccan woman, has echoes in real-world profiling, particularly for people of colour. "Surveillance is universal," Lalami says, "but surveillance is not neutral."