Our literary selection

War, War, War and Watch Us Dance, the first two parts of Leïla Slimani's novel trilogy, The Land of Others, took us through colonization and the aftermath of Moroccan independence alongside two generations of the Belhaj family, inspired by the author's own.

If you've read these first two volumes, great. But if you haven't, don't let that deter you from reading the latest installment, recently released, J'emporterai le feu (I Will Carry the Fire). It describes the journey of the third generation, born in the 1980s, through Mia and Inès—the latter being a kind of romantic double of Leïla Slimani.

Two sisters who will have to confront the tragedy experienced by their father, arrested by the Moroccan authorities under arbitrary pretexts and thrown in prison, where he begins to waste away. This won't stop the two sisters from making their own way. And living their youth as exiles to the fullest, in Paris and London.

In this latest volume, we find Leïla Slimani's writing talent, her art of mixing great history with personal and intimate stories.

I Will Take the Fire – Leïla Slimani, Gallimard editions, 432 p., €22.90.

Don't confuse Raphaël Quenard with the character he describes in his first novel, Clamser à Tataouine. Even if the actor (he notably starred in Yannick et Chien de la casse, a film for which he received the César for Best Male Revelation) clearly lent him some of his characteristic traits: a wry sense of humor, an immoderate taste for absurd situations, a pronounced tendency toward provocation, and a manic love of the French language. As well as his geographical roots: his (anti)hero was born, like him, in the suburbs of Grenoble.

However, until proven otherwise, Raphaël Quenard is not a serial killer, adept at mass feminicides. But he perfectly captures the rather disturbed psychology of the narrator he portrays in his novel. A young, suicidal outsider who has found no other way to regain a taste for life than to take a few lives.

This cheerful sociopath is also methodical: he plans to attack, one by one, various representative female figures of today's society. In his sights are an aristocrat, an engineer, a footballer's wife, a cashier, and a homeless woman...

For each of these women, he aims to commit the perfect crime, the perpetrator of which is never found. Whether he succeeds, we won't reveal. Suspense is one of the qualities of this unique book. As well as the talent for portraiture, the inventiveness, and the humor demonstrated by Raphaël Quenard in this remarkable and acclaimed first opus.

Clamser in Tataouine – Raphaël Quenard, Flammarion editions, 192 p., €22.

“Farida Khelfa, born May 23, 1960 in Lyon, is a Franco-Algerian actress, documentary filmmaker, and former model. A regular at the Palace nightclub in the early 1980s, then at the Bains Douches, she became a model thanks to fashion designer Jean-Paul Gaultier until 1993, working with Azzedine Alaïa and Jean-Paul Goude.” This is what we can read on the Wikipedia page of the – still – attractive sixty-year-old. We also learn that she has not only been the muse of the greatest fashion designers but that she has also been, and still is, a director and actress.

Nothing predestined her, especially not her childhood, to this success. This is what she recounts in her autobiographical account, Une Enfance française. Far from the victim stance that some would have adopted in her place, she looks back on her childhood in a disused tannery, freezing in winter and stifling in summer, in Oullins, in the early 1960s.

His father, an Algerian immigrant and night watchman at Perrache train station, was illiterate and an alcoholic, capable of drinking a dozen bottles of wine a day. This terrible addiction was accompanied by violence and sexual abuse against his wife, as well as his brothers and sisters. His mother retreated into her role as a martyred woman.

Farida's sharp intelligence and fiercely independent spirit led her, at 16, to join her older sister in the heart of Paris, far from this poisonous atmosphere. This is where it all began: the company of the greatest fashion designers (Louboutin, Gaultier, Alaïa, Lacroix, Goude...), the fashion shows as a model, the nights of partying, the champagne, at the Bains Douches, at the Palace.

But this alluring 80s setting obviously has its downside. She tries heroin and develops a taste for it: it loosens her inhibitions. Her incredible strength of character and creativity will help her triumph over this addiction...

Today, a fulfilled mother of two, she felt the need and the strength to revisit her chaotic journey. Her story, which doesn't necessarily follow the chronology of the many events that have marked her life, is both captivating and moving.

A French Childhood – Farida Khelfa, Albin Michel editions, 256 p., €19.90.