Newsletter

Receive regular updates about forthcoming events and other news from Intelligence Squared

Thanks

You have been added to our mailing list and will now be among the first to hear about events.

Watch

Leïla Slimani in Conversation with Shahidha Bari

Art &
Culture

The award-winning author shares on the impact of colonialism and the ways in which women in particular find themselves othered, politically, culturally and historically

Leïla Slimani’s second novel Lullaby stunned the literary world with its chilling account of the death of two children at the hands of their nanny. Its deft prose and insight into the socio-political intricacies of modern French society earned Slimani the Prix Goncourt, making her the first Franco-Moroccan woman to be awarded France’s most prestigious literary prize. French President Emmanuel Macron appointed her Francophone affairs minister soon afterwards and her role promoting the French language and culture has consolidated her as one of the country’s most influential literary figures in recent years.

In August 2021 she came to Intelligence Squared to discuss her new novel The Country of Others. Inspired in part by the story of Slimani’s grandparents and the first in a planned trilogy, The Country of Others is set immediately after World War Two, and follows the life of Mathilde, a young French woman, who has just married Amine Belhaj, a Moroccan soldier she met while he was stationed in her town fighting for the French. Mathilde struggles with her new life alongside her husband in Morocco and the mounting tensions between her desire for freedom and the traditions she is forced to follow make for an explosive read.

In conversation with writer and cultural historian Shahidha Bari, Slimani shared her insights into the impact of colonialism and the ways in which women in particular find themselves othered, politically, culturally and historically.

Photo: Catherine Hélie ©Editions Gallimard

Event Name

Leïla Slimani in Conversation with Shahidha Bari

WATCH

This video is available to watch for Intelligence Squared Full Members and Patrons. Click the button below to subscribe to Intelligence Squared+ to watch this event and hundreds more.

WATCH ON DEMAND

Already a Full Member or Patron? Sign in to Intelligence Squared+ here.

Speakers for the motion

  • Leïla Slimani

    Award-winning Franco-Moroccan author. French president Emmanuel Macron’s personal representative for the promotion of the French language and culture

Chair

  • Shahidha Bari

    Writer, academic and broadcaster

Speakers are subject to change.

Speakers

Speaker

Leïla Slimani

Award-winning Franco-Moroccan author. French president Emmanuel Macron’s personal representative for the promotion of the French language and culture

Award-winning Franco-Moroccan author. She is the first Moroccan woman to win France’s most prestigious literary prize, the Prix Goncourt, which she won for Lullaby. A journalist and frequent commentator on women’s and human rights, she is French president Emmanuel Macron’s personal representative for the promotion of the French language and culture.
Chair

Shahidha Bari

Writer, academic and broadcaster

Professor of Fashion Cultures and Histories at London College of Fashion at the University of the Arts London, and a Fellow of the Forum for Philosophy at the London School of Economics. She is a regular presenter of the BBC Radio 3's Arts and Ideas programme, Free Thinking, and an occasional presenter of BBC Radio 4's Front Row and Saturday Review. She contributes to Aeon, The Financial Times, Frieze art magazine, The Guardian, The Observer, The Times Literary Supplement and other publications. She is the author of Dressed: The Secret Life of Clothes.

 

Speakers are subject to change.