‘Writing is exactly like love – you have to do it in the dark’: essayist Leila Slimani on why books fascinate | Leila Slimani

Met is a bright, cold morning in Madrid, and the Museo del Prado does not open to the public for another hour. Without crowds, the museum is amorphous and eerily silent. Pale pools of light in the corners cast long shadows around the paintings, as if the figures within them had quietly entered the room. This is where I meet the French-Moroccan writer Leila Slimaniwho has spent the last two weeks using this place as inspiration for his work.

With a brisk walk, Slimani leads us to a gallery that houses some of his favorite paintings: Francisco Goya’s Black Paintings, which were created later in life when the Spanish artist copied them. a very dark look on personality. Among them are Saturn Eating His Son, a violent image of the god biting his son; The Fates, with its three tragic figures that spin the thread of life; and the Witch’s Sabbath (the Big Goat), in which the devil appears as the goat leading the covenant.

“Being in a room alone with Goya is special,” Slimani tells me later, over cappuccinos in a nearby cafe. “He didn’t paint the future or the past – he painted the future, our experience. He saw things that others didn’t.” He pauses. “There is something disappointing – 25 years after the French Revolution – in the way they look at people.

Slimani is in Madrid as part of Writing the Prado, a building that is inviting international writers to create a new work inspired by the museum. For him, the relationship between literature and photography is natural. He said: “Sometimes when I’m writing I put pictures next to my desk. “In a picture, there’s something you’re trying to show. Every book has its own style.”

Goya’s vision is in line with his passion as a writer. I always ask myself, ‘Do you know what is happening around you, or are you blind? He is smiling and modest but there is determination behind his big brown eyes. He speaks freely, often without self-doubt.

A preoccupation with what lies beneath – with the contradictions, strengths and weaknesses of humanity – runs through Slimani’s life and work. Born in Rabat in 1981, the daughter of a doctor and a government minister turned to banking, went to Paris at the age of 17, studied at Sciences Po, and then began her career as a journalist. His first fiction was widely rejected before he published his first book, Adeleabout a Parisian pagan woman and woman living a high-spirited, promiscuous life.

When Adèle established her guilty pleasure, it was her second book, Lullabywhich turned him into a professional writer. Inspired by real-life childcare tragedies, it opens with unspeakable violence and works behind the scenes, dividing class, race and women’s concerns. In 2016, it made Slimani the first Moroccan woman to win the Prix Goncourt, and her public profile changed overnight. Then he was elected and French President Emmanuel Macron as his representative to promote the French language and Francophone culture.

He said: “I was very happy. I don’t know, but it was happening and I wanted to enjoy it. I will not try to find a reason not to be happy.”

His refusal to limit his success is exacerbated by the difficulty of starting a family. When Slimani was 20 years old, his father was arrested and imprisoned on money-related charges. He died before the trial but was acquitted, and Slimani often cites his past actions to write out of anger and a desire for revenge. That sentiment, he says, is still there. “Books are perhaps the best way to return justice to people who do not understand or listen to them.” A writer can delve deeply into another person’s mind and try to make sense of the opposite.

In recent years, Slimani has explored the history of his family in the “World of Others” trilogy, culminating in I’ll Take the Fire, published this year, which follows two sisters as they discover who they are, on the run. He said: “I really wanted to write this book because it is about my father. I didn’t know that I had enough strength.”

The book’s title comes from a line encouraging the protagonist to leave Morocco “and take the fire with you. Don’t look back, don’t think too much about your childhood or your country.” But is that possible? Slimani said: “It is possible, and I think it is very important when you move to another country not to spend all your time looking back.” Grief can ruin your life. He is smiling. “But my memory is like a fish – I forget a lot, so it’s easy!”

The progress he talks about comes with challenges. Arriving in Paris as a teenager, Slimani agreed to reform, telling himself that he would succeed as a writer if he sat at the Café de Flore with a glass of wine and a cigarette. But he has described integration as a form of division, wanting to “violently” remove one identity to make sense within another.

“I knew that freedom comes with being alone, but I was, and still am, convinced that it is important.” As a girl, she admits that she often showed herself, even laughing along with racist jokes. “When you’re young, you just want to be involved in other things.

It’s a question that runs through many of his ideas about freedom. Freedom is always racist. I have never met a person who has all the freedom. He opposes the label of a “free” or “courageous” woman, calling this “absurd”. He said: “I don’t want to participate in this role, sometimes I’m too distant, sometimes I’m scared.”

The waiter comes to remove our cups and Slimani accidentally takes his vape. His desire to speak and do what he wants is long-lasting. When he was four years old, he told his parents: “It’s my mouth and I’ll say what I want,” and they gave him the name Cémabouche (“C’est ma bouche” – “It’s my mouth”).

Her work goes back to the challenges placed on women, especially in Morocco. In his famous book Sex is a Lieshe collected testimonies from women about their hidden sex lives, and has been outspoken about abortion and sexual freedom. What does it mean for a woman to be brave today? “Being selfish, I agree that you shouldn’t always be selfish.”

As a journalist, he covered the Arab Spring; since then he has written powerfully about extremism, identity and racism in France. Do they think Europe makes it easier or harder to have multiple identities? He said: “There is a new kind of racism that involves pollution. The fear that being close to the “other” will take away identity. People just want to lose their culture, their culture, their privilege. Everyone feels lost, he adds, “and the extreme right and the people who love people are winning everywhere. The story is theirs now.”

But it is not only the West that he opposes. Slimani also spoke about feeling betrayed by people from his homeland who follow Islam while rejecting the cultures they live in. “You can’t win,” he said. You feel supported by people who are not your friends.”

What they argue instead is more difficult. “The world is not black and white. We have to change. There are many ways to define yourself as a Moroccan.” He refuses to be cast as the opposite. “They want to create an image in you – ‘Look, he’s a Muslim and he’s drinking and he’s talking loudly, how brave.’ No, I’m alone!” He describes a recent meeting where someone showed him his lists on abortion, homosexuality and Islam before concluding: “We are very lucky to be French.” He shakes his head and says: “I was very ashamed of him.”

For Slimani, writing remains the best way to store ideas, and he calls it “an important tool against superstitions, obsessions, stupidity”. He is not really interested in the work of the writer, he likes certain secrets. “You have to do it in the dark. It’s exactly like love – you do it and you don’t talk about it. The script is very attractive.”

At the Prado, he has been trying to use the private space, planning his days around looking and thinking as much as creating. At first, he felt that his stress was easing. “I couldn’t write for the first few days, then I said to myself, ‘Wait, just enjoy being here and see what happens.’

For the past few years, she has lived in Lisbon with her husband and their two children. Releasing pressure is something they are still working on. Now that I have children, travel, promotions, it’s hard to steal time to think.