The Country of Others by Leïla Slimani is Hay Festival Book of the Month for August. The novelist joins us live online 17 August at 7pm while signed copies are available in the online shop.
From the bestselling author of Lullaby and Adele, The Country of Others is a novel about a woman in an interracial marriage whose fierce desire for autonomy parallels her adopted country’s fight for independence.
Alsace, 1944. Mathilde finds herself falling deeply in love with Amine Belhaj, a Moroccan soldier billeted in her town fighting for the French. After the Liberation, Mathilde leaves her country to follow her new husband to Morocco. But life here is unrecognisable to this brave and passionate young woman. Suffocated by the heat of the Moroccan climate, by her loneliness on the farm, by the mistrust she inspires as a foreigner and by their lack of money, Mathilde grows restless.
Slimani joins us live online 17 August at 7pm while signed copies are available in the online shop.
Hay Festival’s Book of the Month is selected by the festival team in Hay-on-Wye and aims to celebrate great works of fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Titles are sold in the UK through the festival’s online shop, as well as being available in all good libraries and bookshops.
Find out more about Hay Festival’s Book of the Month here or explore #HBOTM on social.