Leïla Slimani (MA/FR) in conversation with Matthias Dressler-Bredsdorff
In 2007, Leïla Slimani caused a great debate with her book 'Sex and Lies'. Now she will be visiting The Black Diamond with her latest book 'In the Country of Others'.
The Moroccan-French writer Leïla Slimani visited The Black Diamond in 2018 to great attention. We are delighted to welcome Slimani back to the Queen's Hall in connection with her newly published book Le Pays des Autres (In the Country of Others), which was published by Gyldendal earlier this year.
In 2017, the book Sexe et mensonges (Sex and Lies) caused a fierce debate. In this book Slimani describes the hypocrisy concerning sex that she believes is widespread in Muslim countries.
The open face of Francophonie
Slimani has been very active as a cultural writer and opinion former over the years. In 2010, she covered the Arab Spring in Tunisia and has consistently been an active advocate for women's rights in Morocco. Her political activism combined with her success as a writer led to her appointment as "représentante personnelle d'Emmanuel Macron pour la francophonie" (Emmanuel Macron's personal representative for Francophonie) in 2016. Macron described her as "the open face of Francophonie in the multicultural world".
Slimani will be in conversation with journalist Matthias Dressler-Bredsdorff at The Black Diamond.
Leila Slimani
Leila Slimani studied political science at the Parisian Institute of Political Science and has previously worked as a journalist. She made her debut in 2014 with the novel Dans le jardin de l'ogre (In the Garden of the Ogre). As a fiction writer, her second novel, Lullaby, was a massive international breakthrough, selling over 600,000 copies in France alone. The book has received outstanding reviews and in 2016, Slimani became the second Moroccan to win France's most prestigious literary prize, the Prix Goncourt.
Matthias Dressler-Bredsdorff
Matthias Dressler-Bredsdorff is a writer for the Danish newspaper, Politiken, as well as the European editor of Magasinet Eftertryk. He has lived in Paris for the last 7 years, where he has tried to understand French contemporary culture and history from his base as a lecturer at the Sorbonne Université.
Planned in collaboration with Institut Français.
