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ormondebooks 's review for:
In the Country of Others
by Leïla Slimani
This is a book about the concept of otherness as much as it is a social and historical commentary on Morocco in the years before it gained independence from France.. Its also a big shift in subject matter from Franco-Moroccan author Leila Slimani.
In the Country of Others is the first in a planned trilogy about the Belhaj family, Mathilde falls in love with Amine, a Moroccan soldier fighting with the French in World War 2. They form an unlikely couple: Mathilde is tall, French and Catholic, Amine is short, Moroccan and Muslim. They marry and Mathilde moves to Morocco to set up home as a farmers wife. The novel chronicles the struggles and cultural oppression that Mathilde faces as both a woman and a foreigner, and the perilous position of women in Moroccan society. As war rages between the French Colonists and the Moroccan Nationalists, Mathilde faces her own battles. She fights against the harshness and drudgery of life on the isolated farm; the heat and dust, the loneliness, poverty and domestic violence. While the novel focuses on the extended Belhaj family, it is Aicha, Mathilde's gifted daughter, who is a stand-out character for me. She attend a Catholic girls school in the nearest town ran by an order of French nuns where as a child of a mixed marriage, she is perceived as different, as the other.
This is a fascinating story which is far more than a multi generational novel about family but is a snapshot of a country in turmoil. It educated me about Morocco's fight for independence in the 1950s, Its is written in Slimani's uncompromising style and I am really looking forward to continuing the story of the Belhaj family.
In the Country of Others is the first in a planned trilogy about the Belhaj family, Mathilde falls in love with Amine, a Moroccan soldier fighting with the French in World War 2. They form an unlikely couple: Mathilde is tall, French and Catholic, Amine is short, Moroccan and Muslim. They marry and Mathilde moves to Morocco to set up home as a farmers wife. The novel chronicles the struggles and cultural oppression that Mathilde faces as both a woman and a foreigner, and the perilous position of women in Moroccan society. As war rages between the French Colonists and the Moroccan Nationalists, Mathilde faces her own battles. She fights against the harshness and drudgery of life on the isolated farm; the heat and dust, the loneliness, poverty and domestic violence. While the novel focuses on the extended Belhaj family, it is Aicha, Mathilde's gifted daughter, who is a stand-out character for me. She attend a Catholic girls school in the nearest town ran by an order of French nuns where as a child of a mixed marriage, she is perceived as different, as the other.
This is a fascinating story which is far more than a multi generational novel about family but is a snapshot of a country in turmoil. It educated me about Morocco's fight for independence in the 1950s, Its is written in Slimani's uncompromising style and I am really looking forward to continuing the story of the Belhaj family.