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The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami

Featured in the Tertulia First Dibs Editors Salon
The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami
The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami
Guest Contributor: Naomi Gibbs •
Dec 25th, 2023

Tertulia's First Dibs Editors Salon series is an exclusive look at a few of the most exciting books coming out each season. Join us on January 15 at 7 pm on Zoom for what promises to be a great conversation about books by the editors who helped to shape and publish them.

➳ January 15 at 7:00 pm ET on Zoom Get tickets to the First Dibs Editors Salon

Are you an active Tertulia member? If so, use the special promo code in your email to reserve FREE tickets including the opportunity to request an advance copy of one of the featured books. Have a question or need help registering? Contact us at hello@tertulia.com.

One of this salon's selections is The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami, which tells the extraordinary story of one woman's fight for freedom, set in a near future where even dreams are under surveillance. We are honored to have the book's acquiring editor, Naomi Gibbs, join us at the salon on January 15 to talk about the book. She shared this personal note as a special preview just for Tertulia readers.

Naomi Gibbs is executive editor at Pantheon Books


I imagine some readers are already familiar with the great Laila Lalami. Her third book, The Moor’s Account, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. Her fourth book, The Other Americans, was a National Book Award finalist. And with The Dream Hotel, her sixth book, we believe she’s ready for a whole new level of success—I’m thrilled it will be in readers’ hands soon.

What struck me first about this propulsive, prescient novel is how relatable it is, how chillingly easy to imagine. A new mother, exhausted, tries a popular technology, a brain implant that regulates your sleep cycle, allowing (finally!) for a full night’s rest. She’s so desperate, of course she doesn’t read the fine print in the terms of service. Who does that anyway?

And here Laila imagines our reality to a new extreme—what if it wasn’t just the things we buy, the places we go, the people we talk to, and the articles we read that were being tracked, but our dreams. What if our dreams were being used as evidence against us? The book follows Sara, the protagonist, through an existential nightmare so dizzying it would make Kafka shudder. Her quest to exonerate herself is completely immersive and, at every step of the way, probes urgent questions of autonomy, surveillance, and our slippery, seductive relationship with technology. By the time you turn the final page, I am confident that The Dream Hotel will change your perspective, in the way that only the work of a master thinker and writer can.

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