Leïla Slimani

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Leïla Slimani
ESCP Europe
Occupations
  • Author
  • journalist
Known forLullaby (novel)
Children2
Parent(s)Othman Slimani (father)
Béatrice-Najat Dhobb (mother)
AwardsPrix Goncourt (2016)

Leïla Slimani (born 3 October 1981[1]) is a Franco-Moroccan writer and journalist. She is also a French diplomat in her capacity as the personal representative of the French president Emmanuel Macron to the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie.[2][3] In 2016, she was awarded the Prix Goncourt for her novel Chanson douce.

Life

Slimani's maternal grandmother Anne Dhobb (née Ruetsch; 1921-2016) grew up in

otolaryngologist, who married the French-educated Moroccan economist Othman Slimani. The couple had three daughters; Leïla Slimani is the middle one. Leïla was born in Rabat on 3 October 1981; she grew up in a liberal, French-speaking household and attended French schools. An important rupture in Slimani's childhood occurred in 1993 when her father was falsely implicated in a finance scandal and fired from his position as president of the CIH Bank (he was later officially exonerated.)[4][5]

Slimani left Morocco at the age of 17 for

Gallimard. He took an interest in Slimani's writing and helped her improve her style; in 2014, Slimani published her first novel Dans le jardin de l’ogre ("In the Garden of the Ogre" - in English translation, "Adèle") with Gallimard. The novel fared well with French critics and received the La Mamounia literary award in Morocco. Two years later she followed up with the psychological thriller Chanson douce, which won the Prix Goncourt and turned her into a literary star in France, and made her known to international audiences as well. In 2017, her second child, a daughter, was born.[1][4][6][7][8]

In addition to her native Moroccan citizenship, Slimani also holds French citizenship due to her Alsatian heritage.

Lisbon, Portugal.[10]

In August 2022, she was announced as the chair of judges for the International Booker Prize 2023.[11]

Work

Slimani in 2015

Politics

On 6 November 2017 the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, appointed Leila Slimani his personal representative to the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie.[2][3]

Fiction

Adèle

Slimani's first novel Dans le jardin de l’ogre, published in English as Adèle, tells the story of a woman who loses control of her life due to her sexual addiction. Slimani got the idea for her story after seeing the Dominique Strauss-Kahn unfolding news. The novel fared well with French critics; in Morocco it received the La Mamounia literary award.[12][4][13]

Lullaby/The Perfect Nanny

Leïla Slimani in 2017

British Book Award in the "Début Book of the Year" category.[15]

Le pays des autres

Main article: The Country of Others

Le pays des autres, lit. "The country of the others" (at Gallimard, 2020), a first novel in a planned trilogy about the writer's own family, deals with the life of Slimani's maternal grandparents during Morocco's period of decolonisation in the 1950s.[16] The second volume in the trilogy, Regardez-nous danser (lit. "Look at us dance"), was published in 2022.

Non-fiction

Slimani worked for several years as a journalist reporting on Northern Africa and the Maghreb, covering, among other things, the Arab Spring in 2011.[17]

Her book Sexe et Mensonges: La Vie Sexuelle au Maroc ("Sex and Lies: Sex Life in Morocco") compiles the accounts of many women she had interviewed while on a book tour throughout Morocco.[17]

La baie de Dakhla : itinérance enchantée entre mer et désert describes a region of Morocco on the Atlantic where people are going through a period of transition between traditional life and modernity.[18]

Books

References

  1. ^ a b Schwartzbrod, Alexandra (29 September 2014). "Leïla Slimani. "Madame Bovary X"". Liberation (in French). Retrieved 3 April 2018.
  2. ^ a b Clavel, Geoffroy (6 November 2017). "La lauréate du Goncourt 2016 Leïla Slimani nommée représentante de Macron pour la francophonie". Le Huffington Post (in French). Retrieved 8 November 2019.
  3. ^ a b "Leïla Slimani". Institut français. Retrieved 8 November 2019.
  4. ^ a b c d e Collins, Lauren (1 January 2018). "The Killer-Nanny Novel That Conquered France". The New Yorker. Retrieved 25 December 2017.
  5. ^ Brégeard, Olivier (12 February 2017). "Leïla Slimani, un Goncourt alsacien". L'Alsace (in French). Retrieved 3 April 2018.
  6. ^ Morenne, Benoit (3 November 2016). "Leïla Slimani Wins Prix Goncourt, France's Top Literary Award". The New York Times. Retrieved 3 April 2018.
  7. ^ LeDuc, Sarah (29 September 2015). "Dark novel on female sex addiction wins prize in Morocco". France 24. Retrieved 3 April 2018.
  8. ^ a b Allardice, Lisa (26 January 2018). "Leïla Slimani on her shocking bestseller, Lullaby: 'Who can really say they know their nanny?". The Guardian. Retrieved 3 April 2018.
  9. ^ "Nomination dans l'ordre des Arts et des Lettres hiver 2017". www.culture.gouv.fr (in French). 23 March 2017. Retrieved 8 November 2021.
  10. ^ "Leïla Slimani: "Contar histórias é a melhor forma de dizer a verdade"". Jornal Expresso (in European Portuguese). Retrieved 4 November 2023.
  11. ^ "Announcing the International Booker Prize 2023 judges". 16 August 2022. Retrieved 10 March 2023.
  12. ^ Tonkin, Boyd (22 October 2015). "Leïla Slimani's Dans le Jardin de l'Ogre: Eroticism in a repressed world". The Independent. Archived from the original on 14 June 2022. Retrieved 3 April 2018.
  13. ^ Young, Molly (23 January 2019), "In ‘Adèle,’ a Young Woman Pounds Champagne, Spurns Hermès and Destroys Lives", The New York Times.
  14. ^ El Masaiti, Amira (2 February 2017). "Leïla Slimani's Chanson Douce Is Most Read of 2016 in France". Morocco World News. Retrieved 3 April 2018.
  15. ^ "Fiction Début of the Year". The British Book Awards. 2019. Retrieved 12 April 2021.
  16. ^ "" Le pays des autres " de Leïla Slimani : un Maroc amer". Fnac. Retrieved 11 March 2020.
  17. ^ a b Kaufmann, Sylvie (13 September 2017). "A Toxic Mix: Sex, Religion and Hypocrisy". The New York Times. Retrieved 3 April 2018.
  18. ^ "La baie de Dakhla...: Mot de l'éditeur". Fnac. Retrieved 11 March 2020.

External links

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