Watch Us Dance

The continuation of Leïla Slimani’s three-volume epic “The Country of Others,” based on the story of her family

Goncourt Prize winner Leïla Slimani, the French writer of Moroccan origin, continues her family epic in the novel “Look How We Dance,” following “The Christmas with the Cypress Trees.” The foundation for the first book was the true story of her grandparents—Matilde, a Frenchwoman, and Amina, a Moroccan man—who met and fell in love at the end of World War II. After passing through every trial, Amina and Matilde grew rich and became an esteemed couple in the high society of Meknes. Now the focus is on the fate of their children. Time does not stand still: in Morocco, after independence is proclaimed, the age-old way of life breaks apart, and a generational conflict is brewing. The children of Amina and Matilde have to build their lives amid political upheavals, choose between the West and the East, resist authoritarian power, and search for their own path, their own happiness, their own love.