Laila Aboezaid

(1950, Morocco) is one of the first Moroccan authors writing in Arabic and whose work is translated in English. Aboezaid actively witnessed the struggle for independence and in her most recent book The Director and Other Stories from Morocco (2006) she writes about the many changes which the struggle for indepenence brought about in Morocco. In her semi-autobiografical novel The Last Chapter. A Moroccan Woman's Life, published in Dutch in 2004, Aboezaid writes about the search for an intellectual Moroccan woman, who, keeping her religious identity, tries to find her personal freedom within Moroccan society. In The Year of the Elephant (1990) independence again plays a major role. In it she writes about the life of a political activist in the period after Moroccan independence in which many Moroccan women were forced back into their traditional roles. Not only in her books does she draw attention to women's rights, in 2002 she was a member of a special commission looking into it. Right now she is writing a biography of the Prophet Mohammed. In addition to novels, Aboezaid has written poetry, articles and short stories.