Leila Abouzeid (Arabic: ليلة أبو زيد) (born 1950, El Ksiba) is a Moroccan author.

[1] She writes in Arabic and is the first Moroccan woman writer of literature to have her works published in English-language translation.

Her first book, Year of the Elephant, was published in 1980, in English by University of Texas Press in 1989, in French in 2005.

The book is named after a battle in Islamic history in which a flock of birds dropped stones on the enemy elephants, causing them to turn around.

In the beginning of The Year of the Elephant, the main character is wandering the streets after a devastating divorce.

Aisha examines how this sudden change happened, and questions: "Can you lose your identity like you use an identification card?

In The Last Chapter, Abouzeid explains her opinion on the use of French in her school years in her closing chapter called Afterword: by the author: "I was in a private school in Rabat where Arabic and French were the languages of instruction.

My intense aversion toward French may explain why I turned to English as my means of communication with the West" (Abouzeid, The Last Chapter 153).

The French had arrested and tortured her father for being an advocate of Moroccan Nationalism and had forced the language upon her.