French writer and writer Leila Slimani, born in Morocco, considered the decline of French culture and language in a number of French-speaking African countries at the expense of mother tongues or other languages as “a natural thing in the period after liberation from colonialism.”
Laila Slimani, born in Rabat in 1981 to a Moroccan father and an Algerian-French mother, said, “The decline of French literature in Africa, or in the French-speaking world, dates back to the post-liberation phase.”
In an interview with Reuters, on the sidelines of her participation in the 20th session of the International Film Festival currently being held in Marrakesh, the writer – who won the highest literary award in France in 2016 – added, “There is a new generation that wants to be proud of its identity, to be independent and not ready to remain dependent.” For the West and its culture, this, for me, is a natural development.”
Laila attends the festival as a member of the official competition film jury, which consists of 14 films.
This session began on the 24th of this month and ends on the second of next month, with the participation of 36 countries and 75 films.
“calm song”
French director Lucie Borletto turned Laila Sulaimani’s novel “A Quiet Song” into a film in 2019. The novel won the Goncourt Prize in 2016, the highest literary award in France.
Critics considered that Laila – who grew up in a Francophone environment and studied in French high school in… Rabat Before she studied media at the Higher School of Commerce in Paris, she achieved an unprecedented achievement by obtaining this award, as she is the first woman of Arab and African origin to win it after the Moroccan writer Tahar Ben Jelloun in 1987 for his novel “Night of Destiny,” and the Lebanese Amin Maalouf in 1993. From his novel “The Rock of Tanios”.
Laila said, “When I write, I do not think about my origin or my African or Arab identity. Thought transcends everything.”
She added, “The difficulties you face are the same as for every artist, writer, or thinker in the world. I try to write as sincerely as possible. I try to write what I think and feel, and what is related to my soul.”
Maghreb culture in France
She pointed out that Arab culture, especially Maghreb culture from the countries of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, “imposes itself strongly in France, where there are a number of Moroccan women writers who have imposed themselves strongly on topics that were previously kept silent about, such as the body.”
Regarding her novel “A Quiet Song,” which suggests calm and tranquility but conceals a heinous crime involving a nanny who killed two children she was caring for, she said, “The world is made of contradictory feelings and sensations. Softness is not alien to our humanity…but violence also exists, unfortunately.”
She expressed her optimism regarding the future of reading and books, and that she does not see any decline in light of the spread of technology and social media, saying, “I am optimistic. I do not think there is any decline in reading. I think that the book still maintains its value. People still read, travel, and move from Yes, to buy books.
Regarding turning her novels into cinematic works, Laila Al-Sulaimani said that she met directors who wanted to turn her stories into films, and “I was eager to know what they were looking for and what would result from this mixing of literature and cinema? But there are some novels that I do not want to direct for cinema.”
