Peek into the work of Leila slimani It involves entering that kind of narrative universe (still unfolding in its particular cosmos, given the author's young age) where everything is imploding in depth and form for the surprised reader. Because Slimani surpasses genres without merging, cuts and tears in his reading by changing scenery without anything being forced. A kind of narrative prodigy given only in grace to those special storytellers.
Nothing better than reading Slimani for this time of ours that appears disruptive, dystopian and contradictory in the supposed friendly construction of the welfare state. Sometimes he breaks up due to ethnic and integration issues (such as his own Najat El Hashmi, with whom he shares Moroccan roots), as if he enters an intimacy full of estrangement. To end up breaking down what is behind the coexistence and that assails us unexpectedly like very real thrillers.
Everything new that comes from Slimani already has that changing author's band enchanted with the surprise in the plot. Except that we are immediately assailed by the mimicry of its characters with which it provides us with a hyperralism capable of everything, a full awareness of the scenes and the future of its characters. Just that part of literature that you only get when you have it, when you know how to count from within because you have the gift of telling it.
Top 3 recommended novels by Leila Slimani
Sweet song
The sweet voice of the wood cradling your child, the sweet sensation of inhabiting a world in harmony. But chaos is the beginning and the end, from the big bang to the breath of life that are, and that we are, the protagonists of this little story. A story that ends up being big, huge. Especially as we discover that sum of nuances that give a more complete kaleidoscopic vision of our lifestyle in the intimate and social sphere.
Myriam, a mother of two children, decides to resume her work at a law firm despite her husband's reluctance. After a meticulous selection process to find a babysitter, they decide on Louise, who quickly conquers the hearts of the children and becomes an essential figure in the home. But little by little the trap of interdependence is going to turn into a drama.
With a direct, incisive and sometimes dark style, Leila Slimani unfolds a disturbing thriller where, through the characters, the problems of today's society are revealed to us, with their conception of love and education, submission and money , of class and cultural prejudices.
The country of the others
The conception of the term country can be so ambiguous that it ends up transforming and differing from one vision or another of two inhabitants of the same country. The problem is wanting to deprive that other of that land. Because then the matter points to an uncompromising, selfish and egocentric defense of a land in which the idea of ​​nation or country makes less and less sense and there is only something similar to a small country left if war is not intended.
In 1944, Mathilde, a young Alsatian, falls in love with AmÃn Belhach, a Moroccan fighter in the French army during World War II. After the Liberation, the couple traveled to Morocco and settled in Meknés, a city in the French Protectorate area with a significant presence of the military and settlers.
While he tries to prepare the farm inherited from his father, ungrateful and stony lands, she will soon feel overwhelmed by the rigorous atmosphere of Morocco. Alone and isolated in the countryside, with her husband and two children, she suffers from the mistrust that she inspires as a foreigner and the lack of financial resources. Will the selfless work of this marriage pay off?
The ten years in which the novel takes place coincide with the inescapable rise of tensions and violence that led to the independence of Morocco in 1956. All the characters live in "the country of the others": the settlers, the indigenous population, the military, the peasants or the exiles. Women, above all, live in the country of men and must constantly fight for their emancipation.
In the ogre's garden
The human being moves between philias and phobias. The former push beyond the will. The second annul that same will. This story is about filias superimposed on existence, on life, on the environment. The option of living in another parallel world where you can surrender to the desires that awaken the asynchronous symphony of life.
Adèle seems to have a perfect life. She works as a journalist, lives in a nice apartment in Montmartre with her husband Richard, a specialist doctor, and their three-year-old son, Lucien. However, under this appearance of everyday life, Adèle hides an immense secret, the insatiable need to collect conquests. "In the Ogre's Garden" is the story of a body enslaved to its drives, a fierce and visceral novel about sexual addiction and its relentless consequences.
«It doesn't matter, everything is lost. Wishing is already giving in. The barriers have been raised. It wouldn't do any good to hold back. So that? It's the same. Now think like opium addicts, gamblers. She is so proud that she has kept temptation at bay for a few days that she has forgotten the danger. " From the author of «Sweet Song», Goncourt Award 2016.
Other recommended novels by Leila Slimani
The scent of flowers at night
Every writer will face at some point the reason for writing. He can stay in a constant or end up breaking and exorcising himself with a story that deepens, until it burns, in that strange crucible where the soul of the writers melts.
"If you want to write a novel, the first rule is knowing how to say no, reject invitations." Why then accept the proposal to spend a night at the Punta della Dogana museum? Through the subtle art of digression in the Venetian night, Leila Slimani delves into the creative process of her writing, addressing the problems of identity and the colonial past, of moving between two worlds, East and West, where she navigates and it sways, like the waters of Venice, a city whose destiny is beauty and destruction. This book is also a discreet dialogue, impregnated with a sweet melancholy, with her childhood in Morocco, with her deceased father. «Writing is playing with silence, it is confessing, in an indirect way, unspeakable secrets in real life.»
