Literary Friction - A Spoonful Of Sugar With Leila Slimani

Literary Friction

Arts

4.9 • 593 Ratings

🗓️ 23 January 2018

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As the most famous nanny in the world once said, a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, but you won't need to sweeten the deal as you listen to our latest guest: French-Moroccan author Leïla Slimani joins us this month to discuss her compelling second novel Lullaby, which examines a relationship between a young Parisian couple and their nanny that ends in tragedy. Lullaby won France's most prestigious literary award, the Prix Goncourt, making Leïla the twelfth woman in history to do so, and it's since become an international sensation. So listen in as we discuss the fascinating and sometimes fraught place nannies occupy in our culture. From the magical perfection of Mary Poppins to the killer babysitters of slasher B-movies, these almost-mummies are the stuff of both dreams and nightmares.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to literary fiction. I'm Carrie Plitt, here as always with my co-host, Octavia Bright. Hi, Octavia. Hi, Carrie. We are back from a bit of a break after Christmas for a new year and not really a new literary friction, but a newly invigorated literary friction. Yes, we are indeed. I ad-lib to that. I know. I could tell.
0:44.4	Today, our theme is nannies and the fascinating and sometimes fraught place that they occupy in our culture and in our books.
0:49.6	From the magic caretaking of Mary Poppins to the killer babysitters of slasher B movies.
0:53.2	And we have a really wonderful guest to kick off the year, don't we, Octavia?
0:54.4	We definitely do.
0:59.8	Today, we're really excited to be interviewing French- Moroccan sensation author Leila Slimini about her second novel, Lullaby, which in French is called Chances Doucée.
1:04.2	Leila is the first Moroccan woman to win France's most prestigious literary prize, the Prix
1:08.4	Angkor, and only the 12th woman to do so ever.
1:11.9	She is a journalist and a frequent commentator on women's and human rights.
1:15.7	Lullaby is a novel about a middle-class couple in Paris and the nanny they hired to care
1:19.7	for their young children, who at first seems like the perfect caretaker.
1:23.7	It's become a complete sensation in France and has already sold in 36 countries to date.
1:28.7	And Macron was so into it that he asked her to be his secretary of culture or arts, which she declined.
1:34.5	Yes.
1:35.5	And he's asked her to do something else which she accepted, but I can't remember exactly what that is.
1:40.3	No, either way.
1:40.8	He's a big old fan.
1:42.6	Yeah.
1:44.1	Number one fan. Number one. So on the show today, we'll be interviewing Leila, discussing nannying and its tropes more broadly in literature, and then give the usual book recommendations. So let us take care of you for the next hour on literary friction. That was cute, Carrie. I see what you did there. Yeah. Not as embarrassing as usual. No, no. I liked it. Gentle. Here we go. Here we go. Lela, thank you so much for coming on literary friction.
2:07.7	Thank you. I wanted to begin by asking you about the first sentence of Lullaby, which is translated into English as the baby is dead.
2:18.5	Did you always want to begin with such a stark image and also with the death of the child?
2:24.5	Yes.
	...

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