Adèle
France

Adèle

by Leïla Slimani

Identity & Belonging Contemporary Fiction Fiction 2014

Summary

Adèle follows Adèle Robinson, a married woman living in Paris with her husband and young son. Despite her comfortable middle-class life and successful career as a journalist, she is consumed by compulsive sexual behavior that threatens to destroy her family and sense of self. As she becomes increasingly unable to control her impulses, her carefully maintained public image begins to unravel, exposing the emptiness and dissatisfaction beneath her seemingly ordinary existence. Through Adèle’s struggles, Leïla Slimani examines desire, addiction, repression, and the pressures of conventional domestic life. Written in a stark, unsentimental style, the novel explores the tension between social respectability and private compulsions, questioning how well people can truly understand themselves and the hidden forces that shape their behavior.

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Country
France
Europe
About the author
Leïla Slimani
Leïla Slimani

Leïla Slimani is a French-Moroccan novelist and journalist known for her psychologically incisive fiction exploring gender, power, sexuality, family, and social inequality. Born in Rabat, Morocco, in 1981, she moved to Paris to pursue her education and later became a prominent voice in contemporary French literature. Her breakthrough novel, Lullaby (Chanson douce, 2016), a psychological thriller about a family’s relationship with their nanny, won the prestigious Prix Goncourt. Her other notable works include The Country of Others (2020), the first novel in a trilogy inspired by her family’s history in Morocco, examining colonialism, cultural identity, and women’s independence. Slimani’s writing often challenges social conventions and exposes the tensions between private desires and public expectations. In 2017, she was appointed France’s representative for international francophone affairs, reflecting her commitment to promoting French-language literature and cultural exchange.

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Details
Published
2014
Author
Leïla Slimani