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" When I was a little girl, my first link to the world was as a reader. Sometimes, I feel a nostalgia for those times, for all the emotions I felt as a child - discovering novels, discovering Dickens, Balzac, or Dostoevsky. I wanted to be like those men. "

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" Let's stop hiding behind a pseudo-respect of cultures, in a sickening relativism that's only a mask for our cowardice, our cynicism, and our powerlessness. I, born Muslim, Moroccan, and French, I will say it to you: Sharia makes me vomit. "

Leila Slimani

Say

Mask

" I don't listen to music. I know it's weird, and I have no explanation for that. But I never do. "

" I like to describe my characters as though they were all trapped in a glass box. "

" Human darkness fascinates me; I find it intriguing. And there are few female characters who are explored in this light. "

Leila Slimani

Who

Light

" I am not patriotic or nationalistic, but the French language is like a country where I take refuge when I have nowhere else to go. It consoles me for everything. For me, the language no longer belongs to the colonialists. "

" You have to fight against all the things that will keep you out of writing, because life doesn't go with writing. You will always have something more important to do: you will have to take your children to school, you will have to cook something, you have to meet friends. But you have to fight if you want to write. "

" A nanny is a woman who lives in an apartment, but the apartment is not her own. She raises children, teaches them how to walk, how to speak; she gives them food - but these children are not her children. So she is in a very ambiguous place. "

" I like anti-hero women. Negative female characters interest me. "

Leila Slimani

Women

" I think maternal instinct is a male construct that has been used for centuries to keep women in their place, at home. "

" I remember that the first time I looked at my son, of course I felt love. But I think the first feeling was not love: it was fear. Someone is needing me. If something happens to him, what am I going to do? Maybe I won't survive if something happens to him? The fear was as big as the love. "

" Motherhood is not only something very pure and very full of love, it can be full of dark things, too. "

" I knew I wanted to write about a nanny, but it was difficult for me to find a narrative rhythm. "

Leila Slimani

Find

Difficult

" Authorities in Rabat believe that if we create a Moroccan character, even in a work of fiction, we are responsible for the image of Moroccan women. "

" Authors have a nationality; books do not. "

" I had a nanny growing up in Morocco, and my parents encouraged me to put myself in her shoes sometimes. "

Leila Slimani

Parents

Myself

" I am not afraid of being a pariah. "

" I don't really consider myself an immigrant, because I was born French; I have always spoken the language. I never had the feeling of being a foreigner. I was very lucky: I came to France, and I had enough money to study and to rent a studio. So, for me, it was not difficult. "

" One of the big mistakes of the Moroccan elite and the elite in the Muslim world was to be afraid of the conservatives. They are fighting for their ideas. Why shouldn't we fight for our ideas? "

" The only way you can know someone is through their actions - you can never know what's going on inside them. "

" I, too, am interested in identity and Islam, which is what people expect of us. But one must not write what is expected. It's important for North African writers to show they have other things to say. "

" I remember, when I was a teenager, people telling me, 'You know, when you are a mother, you will never feel lonely. You will feel so much love, and you will be fulfilled by this love.' Then I became a mother. And I learnt that is absolutely wrong: you can feel very lonely with your children, even if you love them. "

Leila Slimani

People

Mother

" When you live closely with people, you don't see who they really are. In particular, with nannies, they only exist in your home, and when they leave, they don't really exist anymore for you. "

" My parents were lovers of books, and they raised us in a manner that viewed freedom and subversion as indispensable. "

Leila Slimani

Parents

Freedom