Mhani Alaoui is a Casablanca-based writer and anthropologist.

She lived in the US for twelve years, where she began by studying comparative literature and the recent history and cultures of the Arab World. She then went on to receive a PhD in Anthropology from Princeton University, focusing on illegal migration and gray borderlands in the Western Mediterranean. She was a Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at the Casablanca School of Architecture until Summer 2021. 

Mhani Alaoui holds positions with LADSIS (Laboratoire de Recherche sur les Différentiations Socio-Anthropologiques et les Identités Sociales) at the University of Ain Chock and with the Center for African Mediterranean Studies.

Along with Karima Benjama, Salma El Rayes, and Yzza Sedrati, Mhani Alaoui is a founder of the OtherNarratives initiative. Find out more about OtherNarratives events on their Facebook and Instagram pages.

Her first novel, Dreams of Maryam Tair, released in 2015, received the Independent Publisher Book Award and the Indiefab Award.

Her second novel, Aya Dane, was released in Fall 2018.  A preview, The Expat, appeared in the Massachusetts Review, June 2018.

Her third novel, The House on Butterfly Street, was released in the U.S. on Oct 24th, 2023. The Moroccan edition was released in December 2023. The House on Butterfly Street is a finalist in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards (Regional Fiction category) and long-listed for the Chanticleer literary awards.