La Muselivre

Le roman de Laïla Lalami (MoorishGirl), bien qu'écrit et publié aux Etats-Unis, est tout ce qu'il y a de plus actuel en Europe, puisque'il traite de l'immigration clandestine marocaine (Laïla Lalami est marocaine elle-même, naturalisée américaine). Il serait peut-être temps qu'un éditeur français s'intéresse à ce livre, MAINTENANT.

Q: What are your thoughts about the recent news, noted in your blog, about the Moroccan authorities who detained more than 1,000 people trying to get to Europe via the Strait of Gibraltar, the same route that your characters took in Hope an Other Dangerous Pursuits ?
A: Migration of this sort has been happening for centuries, in various directions.In the case of Morocco, emigration to Europe started in the 1960s -there were no visas or quotas then - and several European countries welcomed the influx of workers for their factories, so a lot of people moved there. Progressively there were fewer jobs available, and visas were imposed. At the same time, the economic situation in Morocco didn't improve significantly enough.By the late 1990s, unemployment was in the double digits, and the hardest-hit areas were rural areas. For many jobless people, emigration seemed to be the only solution. Since the distance between Spain and Morocco is only eight miles at the narrowest point, people began to charter boats and cross the straits. There are estimates that as many as 4,000 people have died over the last 10 years in these crossings. Despite this, enough people make it through so that more people try it out.The irony is that now Morocco has its own immigrant problem; thousands of people come from as far away as Senegal, Mali, Nigeria, Guinea and other sub-Saharan countries to Morocco in order to try their luck at the crossing.It's become an international problem both for Spain and for Morocco.