His novels are, one after the other, adapted for the big screen. In France or abroad. A recognition that Leïla Slimani relishes. And one of the variations of his work started a decade ago. This summer, it was on mondovision that the collective work that she carried out with Patrick Boucheron, Damien Gabriac, Fanny Herrero (1) and Thomas Jolly was deployed on the screens during the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games.
Leïla Slimani touches everything. Imagines fiction, publishes essays and comic strips. And makes his identity, – “I have two nationalities, I am French and I am Moroccan” she likes to repeat – a protean material to tell us stories. Fictional or anchored in a certain form of historical reality as is the case for his trilogy The country of others including the third part, I will take away the firewill be released next January.
Throughout the pages, it tells the modern history of Morocco in its postcolonial period through the characters of Mathilde and Amine. Without making it a didactic story. “What interests me is to stay up to date with the character,” she explains again.
Historians, authors, the 2024 president of the RVH Book Fair – she succeeds Pierre Lemaitre – will rub shoulders with them throughout this edition dedicated to the city.
In Blois, a city she does not yet know, Leïla Slimani hopes to be able to be “an attentive president”. And to insist: “I am very curious about others so I especially want to listen and learn. To feed off the work of others. »
The theme of the city is of particular interest to those who now live in Lisbon, Portugal. In her novels, the trained journalist explains that the city, urbanized space or not, occupies, in the same way as men, women and children, the role of a character in its own right. From a bohemian Parisian neighborhood in sweet song to the question of segregation in Moroccan cities in her trilogy, she demonstrates that the city is not just a setting.
(1) Who she will meet in Blois on Saturday October 12 at 4 p.m. for a discussion around the theme “Telling the story of our common imaginations. A look back at writing the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games. Furthermore, Leïla Slimani will be the guest of a major interview on Friday October 11 at 3 p.m.
