The Country of Others

It was during the frenzied aftermath of the publication of her bestselling novel Lullaby that the French-Moroccan writer Leïla Slimani discovered the difficulty of answering questions around her identity. Her most recent novel, The Country of Others, is partly her quest to remedy that, and partly an ode to her interracial grandparents, with whose story she was fascinated from childhood, and which she says she knew she would one day share with the world. The Country of Others is the story of Mathilde, a feisty Frenchwoman who falls in love with a Moroccan soldier and follows him to live in rural Morocco. As the country struggles for independence from the French colonialists, so Mathilde’s desire for autonomy conflicts with her adopted country’s repressive and chauvinist culture. The complexity of being an outsider is masterfully wrestled with through the main character’s relationship to her stifling community and her marriage. Yet, as the novel moves lightly from one character to the next, it’s the universal language of loneliness that brings intimacy and immediacy to this remarkable story.