I'll Take the Fire

FROM THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLING AUTHOR 'Leïla Slimani has a knack for breaking taboos.' TIMES 'Slimani is a fearless writer.' EVENING STANDARD Q: If your house was burning down, what would you take with you? A: I'd take the fire. This is the story of two sisters, Mia and Inés. Two girls enveloped in love, trapped by the social conventions of Casablanca at the dawn of the twenty-first century and silenced by the political 'truths' that envelop their lives. Mia the eldest, a warrior and a pariah, her sexuality a matter of scorn, something to be erased. Inés the youngest, a woman trying to carve out an identity in a Paris that derides and erases her, with no way back to Morocco, a homeland to which her father has warned her never to return, for her own sake. As these sisters struggle to find a home - a place of safety and love that holds rather than binds - their lives as framed by their mothers and grandmothers before them will be a battle for their hearts and souls, and one they take on with every sinew of their being. 'We feel deeply for the family caught in the middle of the conflict of history.' SALMAN RUSHDIE, on The Country of Others

Leïla Slimani is the author of Adèle, Sex and Lies and Lullaby, which made Slimani the first Moroccan woman to win France's most prestigious literary prize, the Prix Goncourt. A journalist and frequent commentator on women's and human rights, she is French president Emmanuel Macron's personal representative for the promotion of the French language and culture. Born in Rabat, Morocco, in 1981 and a citizen of France, she divides her time between Paris, Portugal and international commitments that take her around the globe.