Leïla Slimani

The first work of non-fiction in English from the prize-winning and internationally bestselling author of Lullaby and Adèle In these essays, Leila Slimani gives voice to young Moroccan women who are grappling with a conservative Arab culture that at once condemns and commodifies sex. In a country where the law punishes and outlaws all forms of sex outside marriage, as well as homosexuality and prostitution, women have only two options for their sexual identities: virgin or wife. Sex and Lies is an essential confrontation with Morocco's intimate demons and a vibrant appeal for the universal freedom to be, to love and to desire.

Sex and Lies

Marion

These days, were confronted with our own conflicting identities: sex is associated with the Other, the decadent West, while Moroccan and Muslim identity stands for virtue and modesty. But were forgetting everything. Were forgetting that its we Arabs, we Muslims, who shocked the West with our erotic texts in the fifteenth century. We invented the realm of the erotic. Were suffering from collective amnesia.

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