An award-winning Paris author known for her shocking graphic novels has said in a new interview that “being a mother can be very disappointing.”
Leïla Slimani, 41, rose to world fame with her 2016 chilling psychological thriller Lullaby — loosely based on the 2012 Crimean murders in New York — while her racy 2019 book followed a middle-class, sex-addicted mother.
Slimani is a Franco-Moroccan publishing sensation — dubbed a “literary celebrity” by fashion bible Vogue — but her work is likely to leave those who read it wide-eyed.
There are intensely graphic scenes depicting her frequent masturbation and how she searches for seemingly momentary gratification through a series of lovers.
In a new interview to promote her latest book, she shared The times she finds motherhood “complex,” saying, “I really wonder how many women would become mothers if they knew what it was exactly.
Award-winning Paris-based author Leïla Slimani, 41, who acts as an adviser to President Macron, has said in a new interview that ‘being a mother can be very disappointing’
The married mother of two rejected President Macron’s famous offer to become his culture minister – a position she rejected as “boring” – instead acting as his French-speaking business representative
“I’m not saying I regret having my kids — I love them more than anything.
“But there’s a part of me that knows the cost, that knows the fear, that knows how society will always exploit this to prevent women from being free.”
Elsewhere, she suggested she feels “everything people told her” about being a mom was “partly a lie.”
Slimani – whose latest book Watch Us Dance is loosely based on her own upbringing – grew up in Rabat in the heart of deeply religious Morocco.
Her father, a government economist, and her mother, a surgeon, raised her in a comfortable and relatively liberal francophone household.
There was also attention for education at home, her two sisters are now doctors.
She moved to Paris at the age of 17 to study political science at Sciences Po University.
When she was 20, her father was jailed for several months for a financial scandal.
He was later released and died soon after, but was acquitted in the months that followed.
Slimani – whose latest book Watch Us Dance is loosely based on her own upbringing – grew up in Rabat in the heart of deeply religious Morocco
Her first book Adèle, published in 2014, depicted a sex-addicted wife and mother.
In 2019, former journalist Slimani told The times: ‘For many people, a man who has many sexual partners is a hunter, a conquistador, as a man should be.
‘It’s different for a woman – she’s considered a slut, or weak. I wanted to challenge that idea.’
The book that made her a household name, Lullaby, sold 600,000 copies in France in its first year alone and has since been translated into 40 languages.
It saw her crowned the most read author in France in 2016, won the prestigious Prix Goncourt literary prize – only the 12th woman to receive the accolade in 113 years – and allowed her banker husband, Antoine, to become a stay-at-home mom. father.
They now share two children – a 12-year-old son and a 6-year-old daughter – and live in Lisbon.
Her second book, Sex and Lies, aimed to reveal the sexual desires of Muslim women who have a “thirst” to speak out about their sexuality.
She said she meets Macron regularly to discuss “French language, history or colonialism” and never about “personal” things
Not only does she regularly rub shoulders with the Macrons, she continues to be the toast of the literary world, appearing on the covers of glossy magazines, including ELLE
Based on her experiences with Islam and the stories of other Arab women, she claimed that millions of Arabs live in “sexual misery.”
Accompanied by a graphic novel about an Arab woman’s sexual awakening, the book examines the ban on abortion, homosexuality and premarital sex in her native country.
The married mother of two rejected President Macron’s famous offer to become his culture minister – a post she rejected as “boring” – instead acting as his representative for francophone affairs.
She said she meets Macron regularly to discuss “French language, history or colonialism” and never about “personal” things.
Not only does she regularly rub shoulders with the Macrons, she continues to be the toast of the literary world, appearing on the covers of glossy magazines, including ELLE.
Speaking of her newfound fame, she is regularly begged for selfies, she shared British Vogue: ‘In the beginning it was very strange, but the people are very nice.
“Sometimes you’re in the supermarket and you don’t want to talk about Islam or feminism, you just want to buy the diapers for the baby and go home.”