Quotes from Leila Slimani

When you live closely with people, you don't see who they really are. In particular, with nannies, they only exist in your home, and when they leave, they don't really exist anymore for you.

Let's stop hiding behind a pseudo-respect of cultures, in a sickening relativism that's only a mask for our cowardice, our cynicism, and our powerlessness. I, born Muslim, Moroccan, and French, I will say it to you: Sharia makes me vomit.

I want to say that I can be Moroccan and speak about someone without speaking about his nationality. Because, you know, I have the feeling that when you come from Morocco, when you come from Afghanistan, when you come from Africa, Occidental people always wait for you to write a novel about identity.

'Lullaby' is about boundaries.

My two sisters and I had a very nice nanny at home in Morocco until I was 13. I remember my parents saying how she had insinuated herself into our family. They knew she would suffer when we broke away from her.

I love looking at pieces of art through the eyes of a child.

It's very important to say that French doesn't belong to France and to French people. Now you have very wonderful poets and writers in French who are not French or Algerian - who are from Senegal, from Haiti, from Canada, a lot of parts of the world.

I just don't believe that a woman is naturally closer to her child than a man. Not at all.

I don't listen to music. I know it's weird, and I have no explanation for that. But I never do.

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.

I grew up in Morocco. I was born a Muslim, and, every year, I celebrated Christmas in a big white house in the country, halfway between Meknes and Fez.

I remember, when I was a teenager, people telling me, 'You know, when you are a mother, you will never feel lonely. You will feel so much love, and you will be fulfilled by this love.' Then I became a mother. And I learnt that is absolutely wrong: you can feel very lonely with your children, even if you love them.

I like anti-hero women. Negative female characters interest me.

Motherhood is not only something very pure and very full of love, it can be full of dark things, too.

Everyone asks me, 'Why do you choose such subversive or shocking themes?' but when I'm alone in my office, I'm not like, 'OK I'm going to shock.' I want to write about a character who fascinates me, someone who I don't understand.

As a mother, you're only allowed to talk about the 'good' moments - not the ones when you've had enough and want to be on your own. Or just want to be a woman, not a mother.

You want your children to love the nanny, but at the same time, you want to stay the mother, and you want to be the most-loved. So there is a sort of jealousy between the mother and the nanny.

I am not patriotic or nationalistic, but the French language is like a country where I take refuge when I have nowhere else to go. It consoles me for everything. For me, the language no longer belongs to the colonialists.

For me, it is freedom, freedom from everything: when I write, I'm not a woman. I'm not a Muslim. I'm not a Moroccan. I can reinvent myself, and I can reinvent the world.

I think maternal instinct is a male construct that has been used for centuries to keep women in their place, at home.

Human darkness fascinates me; I find it intriguing. And there are few female characters who are explored in this light.

I, too, am interested in identity and Islam, which is what people expect of us. But one must not write what is expected. It's important for North African writers to show they have other things to say.

I love cooking shows! I'm not a bad cook myself, but I must say that I admire the creativity of those young chefs. It makes me jealous... and hungry.

I like to describe my characters as though they were all trapped in a glass box.