You're listening to a podcast from the BBC World Service. This is Hard Talk with me, Sarah Montague.

Thanks for downloading this edition of the programme and I hope you enjoy it.

France's President Macron gave my guest today the job of promoting French language and culture around the world.

She's one of the most famous French authors, despite having only written two novels.

Lullaby, a story about infanticide, was a publishing sensation and has been translated into 40 languages.

Her other novel, Adele, also challenged female stereotypes and has shocked readers for breaking taboos about women and sex addiction.

Lelais Lemae is an unlikely face of French literature.

Born in Morocco, she's an advocate for women's rights in the Arab world.

What difference can she make to the way France and its culture are viewed around the world?

Lelais Lema Slimani, welcome to Hard Talk.

Thank you.

Now, your novel, Adele, which is being published for the first time in English, is about a woman

who's addicted to sex, and we're talking about sex, which is, she goes in search of cold,

brutal, they are encounters.

Were you setting out to shock?

Not at all. You know, when you're writing a book,

you're not like, okay, I'm going to shock my readers and I'm going to write about the taboo. No,

you just want to explore the soul of someone and try to understand the character, someone who is mysterious, someone who fascinates you. And Adele

was fascinating me, so I just tried to understand her, and I was hoping that maybe my reader

would feel some empathy for her. But it's quite hard to feel empathy for her, because she's

not a particularly nice character. No, she's not nice, but she's suffering, and she doesn't understand herself. She tries to figure it out why she's not nice, but she's suffering and she doesn't understand herself. She tries to

figure it out why she's acting like she's acting, but she doesn't know. I think that she's

...