Assaut contre la frontière 

Leïla Slimani

  • Fictions

With France Culture

In an original text, novelist Leïla Slimani reflects on her own relationship with the Arabic language — a language she encounters from Morocco to Paris, from Venice to Lisbon.

Portrait of Leïla Slimani, 2024 Francesca Mantovani © Éditions Gallimard

Presentation

Each summer, France Culture takes over the courtyard of the musée Calvet for a week of readings, poetry, thought, and creativity. In resonance with the programme of the Festival d’Avignon, this edition highlights Arabic culture and language, its literature, and its musicality. Renowned actresses and actors will lend their voices to iconic texts, accompanied by authors, poets, musicians, and artists invited for the occasion.

Assaut contre la frontière 

By Leïla Slimani

Why don’t I speak Arabic—my own language?
This painful, dizzying question lies at the heart of my work. It is a source of sorrow, of shame, and it has driven me to constantly reexamine my relationship to identity. Writing may be a way to make peace with that shame—or at least to search for my own language.
A language free from any imposed identity, a language in which I could reinvent myself, become someone else, and launch an assault on the border.

Leïla Slimani was born in 1981. She is the author of five novels published by Gallimard: Dans le jardin de l’ogre, Chanson douce (winner of the Prix Goncourt in 2016 and the Grand Prix des lectrices de Elle in 2017), Le pays des autres (Grand Prix de l'héroïne Madame Figaro 2020), Regardez-nous danser, and J’emporterai le feu.

Distribution

Text Leïla Slimani
Realisation Christophe Hocké

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