This Cultural Life

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Factual: Life Stories

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media: Arts

In-depth conversations with some of the world's leading artists and creatives.

In-depth conversations with some of the world's leading artists and creatives across theatre, visual arts, music, dance, film and more. Hosted by John Wilson.

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This Cultural Life: Leïla Slimani

Leïla Slimani

BBC Radio 4 - This Cultural Life, Leïla Slimani

Author Leïla Slimani reveals the influences and inspirations that have shaped her writing.

Author Leïla Slimani talks to John Wilson about the influences and inspirations that have shaped her writing.

French Moroccan author Leïla Slimani won critical acclaim and a reputation as an author of bold & brutal fiction with her first two novels. Adele is about a bourgeoise Parisian wife and mother who lives a sexually promiscuous secret life. In Lullaby, a nanny kills the children she’s employed to care for, a story currently being adapted as a drama series starring Nicole Kidman. Leïla has also written the first two in a planned trilogy of novels based on her own family history, and has published short stories and non-fiction.  She has won France’s most prestigious literary award the Prix Goncourt, and in 2017 she was appointed as President Macron’s personal representative to Francophone countries. 

For This Cultural Life, Leïla Slimani tells John Wilson about her childhood in Rabat, the daughter of a prominent Moroccan economist and politician. She reveals how she was motivated to write novels after the death of her father who had been convicted of financial fraud and imprisoned, but who was posthumously cleared of any wrongdoing. She chooses her French-born maternal grandmother, who told stories to Leïla , as a formative influence on her creative imagination from a  young age. Having covered the Arab Spring uprisings in Morocco and Tunisia as a journalist for Jeune Afrique magazine, Leïla discusses how news stories have inspired much of her work. 

Producer: Edwina Pitman

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This Cultural Life

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