Moroccan novelist Laila Lalami publish a novel titled The Dream Hotel on March 4, 2025 with Pantheon Books.

The book follows a museum archivist, Sara, who is told by the governments Risk Assessment Agency that she is going to commit a horrible crime based on data found in her dreams. She is to be kept in a retention center for 21 days with other “dreamers” for the safety of those around her, but even the slightest rule-break causes her stay to become exponentially longer. Her prison seems endless, until a new transfer shakes the foundation of the Risk Assessment Agency.

If you’re somehow not sold by the mystery or gorgeous cover, there is an exclusive excerpt from the first chapter of The Dream Hotel available in a People Magazine article highlighting the book here.

Laila has written other novels including Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits, Secret Son, The Moors Account, and The Other Americans. From these titles alone she has been a finalist for the Oregon Book Award, an Orange, and Booker Prize longlist, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, Aspen Words Literary Prize and National Book Award. On top of that, she was awarded the American Book Award, the Arab American Book Award, and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. The Dream Hotel was one of her literary prize winners, being a pulitzer prize finalist, and promises to be an amazing read.

In addition, she is a critic-at-large for the Los Angeles Times and is the recipient of a British Council Fellowship, a Fulbright Fellowship, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Laila has already accomplished great things in the literary space and we’re sure she will continue to in the future.

You can pre-order a copy here.

Congratulations to Laila Lalami, we can’t wait to read The Dream Hotel!