In the Country of Others

A Novel

By: Leila Slimani, Sam Taylor

Narrated by: Lara Sawalha

The award-winning, #1 internationally bestselling new novel by the author of The Perfect Nanny that “lays bare women’s intimate, lacerating experience of war” (The New York Times Book Review)

After World War II, Mathilde leaves France for Morocco to be with her husband, whom she met while he was fighting for the French army. A spirited young woman, she now finds herself a farmer’s wife, her vitality sapped by the isolation, the harsh climate, and the mistrust she inspires as a foreigner. But she refuses to be subjugated or confined to her role as mother of a growing family. As tensions mount between the Moroccans and the French colonists, Mathilde’s fierce desire for autonomy parallels her adopted country’s fight for independence in this lush and transporting novel about race, resilience, and women’s empowerment.

©2021 Leila Slimani (P)2021 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice

One of NPR’s Best Books of the Year

Named a Best Book of the Summer by Vogue, Entertainment Weekly, The Washington Post, Good Housekeeping, BuzzFeed, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Town & Country, Observer, The Millions, and Parade

Winner of the Grand Prix de l’Héroïne Madame Figaro, awarded by France’s oldest national daily newspaper to the best novel featuring a female protagonist

Longlisted for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence

“A strikingly fresh and vivid novel, free of the stale affectation that permeates lesser historical fiction . . . [A] gripping novel whose personal struggles mirror those of Morocco’s fight for independence.” ―Observer (New York)

“Slimani writes motherhood like no one else. . . . [She] handles Mathilde’s evolution elegantly. . . . In Sam Taylor’s seamless, poetic translation, Slimani masterfully captures these nuanced shifts [among French, Alsatian, Arabic, and Berber]. . . . In the Country of Others . . . lays bare women’s intimate, lacerating experience of war and its consequent trauma.” ―The New York Times Book Review

“A satisfying if infuriating look at how power works in the struggle for independence, both personal and political. . . . Dynamic female characters dominate the book. . . . Slimani shines through the rise and fall of tension in her novels. Her willowy prose is dense with emotional depth and insight, and blunt observations elucidate every scene with force. . . . [Her] prose . . . is stunning.” ―The Boston Globe

No redeeming characters.

Not one person that I cared about or empathized with. Just unending disappointment and violence. I must be missing something.