Can a love story arise while everyone is napping?

There is a summer night that the writer Laila Karrouch will always remember: the first time she returned to Morocco after emigrating with her family to Catalonia when she was only eight years old. “We left the country in 1985 and in 1988 we had finally saved enough to be able to visit family again. That first night was very special, I remember a lot of joy and a lot of tears, especially from grandma, and I remember the taste of watermelon, which was very sweet. In Morocco we didn't have a fridge and in the evening we would put the fruit in the little window to keep it fresh. The fruit was always delicious,” Karrouch recalls.

In the days before meeting her family again, the writer was very nervous. “Three years may seem short, but for a child time is relative and my anxiety was whether my grandparents would remember me and if everything would be as before.” Obviously, her grandparents remembered her, but she soon realized that not everything would be as before.

“They received me as if I were a foreigner. Those of us who left and then returned were seen as heroes, and the treatment towards us was different. I had always gone barefoot at home and my grandmother scolded me because it was assumed that Europeans did not go barefoot at home.” Karrouch, who at the time didn't quite understand why she was treated differently, continued to spend her days clinging to her grandmother.

“I really liked being with her. She would get up very early, perhaps at four or five in the morning you could already smell coffee, toast, olives and eggs. I would follow her everywhere because I wanted to help, but I think I was more of a nuisance than anything else. There was a lot of work: sweeping the huge patio, feeding the chickens, the rabbits, preparing the bread… If the water ran out, we would take the donkey and go to the well, which was a couple of kilometers from the house. I loved taking that walk with her and passing by the neighbors' gardens, for me it was magical,” assures Karrouch, who adds: “But as you get older and see that you have no future in the country, that magic disappears a little.”

Karrouch remains very attached to her country of origin and her family through writing. The two latest novels she has published, Swear to me you will return (Univers)and May Allah forgive me (Columna), are love stories that take place in Morocco and are closely linked to her summer experiences in her country of origin. “I remember that siestas were sacred, and that over time I began to wonder if a love story could have arisen behind some of these doors, when apparently everyone was sleeping”.