also seems happy to do extra work for her employers. She cleans the apartment and stays late whenever she is asked. Myriam and Paul cannot believe their luck. But gradually, almost imperceptibly, things start to change and what follows is a riveting exploration of power, jealousy and resentment. Lullaby is Moroccan-born Slimani’s second novel, but her first to be published in English. It was awarded the Fiction: Début Book of the Year at this year’s British Book Awards, and it also won the pres- tigious Prix Goncourt, with Slimani only the seventh woman (and the first Moroccan woman) to win the prize in its 112-year history. Over the phone from her Paris home, she explains in careful English (not her first language) that she always wanted to write a novel about a nanny: “A nanny is a woman who lives in an apartment, but the apartment is not her own. She raises children, teaches them how to walk, how to speak, she gives them food, but these children are not her children. So she is in a very ambiguous place.” In elegant but non-showy prose, each sentence economical but powerful, the novel explores the uneasy relationship between a mother and the person she employs to take care of her children. Continues overleaf 


FURTHER READING...


Leïla Slimani’s Lullaby was published in January 2018 by Faber, which issued her second novel to be published in English, Adele, in February 2019. Sam Taylor trans- lated both titles.


35


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40