Loubna Serraj to deliver 2022 Luncheon Lecture

Loubna Serraj lives in Casablanca where she is an author, radio columnist, and publisher. She also has a literary, social, and political blog on current topics, Chroniques et Élucubrations. With her first novel, Pourvu qu'il soit de bonne humeur ('Let’s Hope He’s in a Good Mood'), she won the 2021 Orange Book Prize in Africa, which celebrates excellence, originality, and accessibility in women's writing. While describing domestic violence as a backdrop, her novel explores the quest for freedom of two women living in different time periods. The Orange Prize judges described the novel as a tour de force that successfully deploys multiple themes, including: "the handig down of trauma through generations, resistance in all its forms, multi-dimensional love, dignity in the face of suffering, abnegation as well as a desire for freedom." The judges further stated: “Loubna Serraj calls out to her society and consequently all the countries where women still suffer physically. Readers hear the author truly speak out."