I’ll Take the Fire

I’ll Take the Fire powerfully concludes Leïla Slimani’s deeply autobiographical trilogy, tracing the Belhaj family saga into turn-of-the-century Morocco. Spanning 40 turbulent years and traversing terrain from Casablanca to Paris, the novel follows two sisters – one gay, one straight – who both struggle against the confusing and stifling dictates of Moroccan society. Inspired by Slimani’s French grandmother, whose feisty and rebellious influence in a paternalistic family structure ultimately led her granddaughter to become a writer, the story explores the conflicting yearnings for freedom and belonging of Mia and Inés, caught as they are in the cultural pull of France. Slimani, a Prix Goncourt winner and Emmanuel Macron’s personal representative for the promotion of the French language and culture, reveals the subtleties of her characters with mastery and tenderness. Fuelled here by the raw need to share her family’s real-life tragedies, she creates characters so intimate and by now familiar, one can almost reach out and touch them.