Thank you NetGalley and Faber for an ebook ARC in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.

The Country of Others is a historical family saga set in Morocco across the 1940s-1950s. It starts with a young French woman, Mathilde marrying a Moroccan soldier, Amine. They meet in her village whilst he is fighting for the French during WW2. She moves to his family home in Meknes filled with excitement and wonder at her new surroundings. Amine relocates them to an isolated farm and she quickly realises this is not a romantic adventure. She must adjust to this lifestyle she is unaccustomed to. They have 2 children and the novel moves between their perspectives, along with their eldest daughter, family members and friends. All of this takes place against a tense political backdrop with the nationalists fighting for independence.

This is a shift from Slimani's first two novels that were translated into English by Sam Taylor. Lullaby and Adele were short and sharp. Apart from the obvious distinction with it being historical fiction, there is a very different feel to the prose. It is still very abrupt and in your face in parts as you would expect from Slimani but there is a lot more depth and beauty to it. The descriptions of the Moroccan villages, their farmland, the surrounding landscapes are vivid and really paint a picture for you to envision. I really enjoyed the different perspectives of the characters and how they each dealt with their circumstances. The novel isn't long but with the different perspectives you really get a feel for the tension in this family, in this country.

Upon requesting a copy I did not realise this was the first in a planned trilogy. I am excited to see how this family saga develops. Definitely recommend!

This is an impressive first book of a family saga trilogy about a French-Moroccan family, set in the turbulent decade leading up to the independence of Morocco in 1955.

It was definitely not an easy read as I had lots of mixed feelings. The dense prose, mostly descriptive and almost completely devoid of dialogues for two thirds of the book, feels suffocating and puts a clear distance between me and the characters described — because they barely speak. But at the same time, I appreciate how the prose evokes in me the same frustration and alienation Mathilde would feel as a foreigner in a new country.

Despite finding all the characters unpleasant, I love how the in-depth characterisation allows me to see what has made them so foolish and/or cruel. As the title indicates, every character in the book is an ‘other’: the interracial couple, the mixed-race children, the coloniser, the subaltern, the feminine, the queer, the unpatriotic. As hybrids and misfits, they struggle in a society where deviation from the norm is met with suspicion and cruelty, and they transfer the same harshness to the way they treat each other.

Though overtly mentioning political conflicts, the story mostly focuses on individual perspectives and quotidian clashes within the family that have less to do with colonialism and nationalism than longstanding cultural norms, like gender roles and the idea of honour in Moroccan society. Arguably nothing much happens until the final 20% or so, but the author is so good at building tension with unmet expectations and anger simmering below the surface that it never lacks momentum. It’s a book I would reread, and I am really curious to see how things will develop in the second book.

Before going into The Country of Others, I think it's important to understand that it is the first in a family saga trilogy. As is typical for the first book in a series this novel is all about setting the scene. It spans a period of about 11 years from 1944 to 1955. During this time, French colonisation of Morocco leads to tensions that eventually escalate into death and violence.

We see events from a few different points of view but our main character is Mathilde, a white French woman, who marries a dark-skinned Moroccan man. She moves from France to Morocco to be with her husband and, there, they start a family. The life Mathilde ends up living is nothing like the romanticised version of African life she was expecting. She is ashamed of the poverty and drudgery she endures and hides this from her family and friends. Their daughter Aicha is acutely aware of the fact that she's different - her mixed race means she doesn't fit in with the white children or the dark-skinned children at her school and she withdraws into herself choosing to find refuge in religion and in her studies. By the end of the book, I sensed that Aicha will have an important role in the next book and think she will make for a fascinating character to follow as she gets older.

The two previous books I have read by Slimani - Adele and Lullaby - had political undertones. In those books, there was some commentary on race, immigration and the role of women in society but The Country of Others tackles these political elements much more overtly. Slimani explores how narratives about race and class can permeate all parts of society and be internalised by the people living within that society. At one point in the book, little Aicha asks her father "are we the goodies or the baddies?" and it's a question I think is central to any political conflict, the answer to which will differ depending on the individual's perspective.

This book is a bit of a slow burn, no doubt in part because Slimani has another two books to further develop the story, but there is a lot running under the surface. Topics including inter-racial relationships, female sexuality, religion and violence are all addressed and I am intrigued to see how the story progresses over the series.

The Country of Others is an atmospheric and compelling family saga from the acclaimed Franco-Moroccan author, Leila Slimani. It highlights a woman entangled between two cultures, divided between her dedication to her family and the love of freedom with which she grew up. In 1944, Catholic Mathilde, a young Alsatian, fell in love with Muslim soldier Amine Belhaj, a Moroccan fighting in the French army against the Nazi occupation. After the Liberation, she leaves her country to follow to Morocco the one who will become her husband. The couple moved to Meknes, a garrison and colonist city in Morocco and near Rabat, where the colonial segregation system applied rigorously. Marriage, relocation, first child, second child - Aïcha and Sélim. Illusions soon collide with reality. While Amine cultivates rocky soil, Mathilde suffocates from the harsh climate - hated by French settlers because she married a Moroccan and rejected by Moroccans because she is not one of their own.

Mathilde works hard to cultivate the family farm but the rocky land makes it far from easy. At the cost of many sacrifices and vexations, Amine manages to organize his domain, by allying with a Hungarian doctor, Dragan Palosi, who will become a very close friend. Mathilde feels suffocated by the harsh climate of Morocco, by her loneliness on the farm, by the mistrust she inspires as a foreigner and by the lack of money. Relations between the settlers and the natives were very tense, and Amine found himself caught in the crossfire: married to a French woman, landowner employing Moroccan workers, he was assimilated to the settlers by the natives, and despised and humiliated by the French because he is Moroccan. He is proud of his wife, of her courage, of her particular beauty, of her strong temperament, but he is also ashamed of it because she does not show proper modesty or submission; certainly not as much as he would like her to.

Aïcha grew up in this climate of violence, following the education given to her by the Sisters in Meknes, where she saw French girls from rich families who found enjoyment when they humiliated her. Selma, Amine's sister, nourishes dreams of freedom that are constantly bullied by the men around her. While Amine begins to reap the fruits of her exhausting labour, riots break out, the plantations are set on fire: the novel ends with scenes of violence inaugurating the country's access to independence in 1956. This is a captivating, richly atmospheric and intricately detailed portrayal of Morocco in the mid-twentieth century and Slimani evokes this convoluted and complex geopolitical period with ease and vigour. Mathilde fights against poverty and the ruling patriarchy with the tale also exploring identity, womanhood, belonging, freedom, heritage, discrimination, religion, culture, family, race and tradition.

This colourful, thought-provoking family saga is set against the backdrop of the independence struggle of the Protectorate of Morocco against France, in which Mathilde and Amine do not want to take sides. But then comes the day when the battle reaches their region as well. It's a beautifully written and extensively researched piece of character-driven writing on hybridity, foreignness, indigenousness and touching on France's colonial past, inspired by the author’s own family origins. In this great fresco, the memorable first part of a trilogy in which each volume covers a period of 10 years, Slimani revives a not so distant epoch and its actors, with a pronounced humanity, accuracy and refined sense of narration. It is a powerful, immersive and engaging novel about a family's struggle against hostile surroundings. But it is also a story that in an original way sheds light on the origins of many of the most acute conflicts of our time. All the characters in the novel live in the land of others - settlers, natives, peasants and refugees. Women, above all, live in the country of men and must constantly fight for their emancipation. Highly recommended.

This is historical fiction and opens in 1944 with Mathilde, a strong-willed French woman who meets and falls in love with Amine, a Moroccan man fighting for the French in WWII. They marry and move to Morocco, where the grim reality of a hot, dusty climate, an isolated, decrepit home and a frosty reception both from the French colonialists and the natives greets Mathilde.

The book is expansive in that we get to know a host of characters - Mathilde and Amine, their children, their friends and Amine’s family, all set against a backdrop of a politically unstable Morocco beginning to strike out for independence and shake off the shackles of French colonialism.

The prose is much less spartan that what you’d expect from Slimani. It’s more exploratory, it’s sensuous and brimming with feeling. It is different though so I’ll be really interested to hear what people think about it. I really enjoyed it. I found it absorbing and I’m already looking forward to the next instalment. 4/5 ⭐️

**The Country of Others by Leïla Slimani is published today, 5 August 2021. I was grateful to have been given the opportunity to read an advance copy of the book courtesy of the publisher @faberbooks via @netgalley. As always, this is an honest review.**

The Country of Others

The legacy of European exploration and colonialism has had long lasting consequences for the Countries and people who followed, perhaps non greater than for the European and Arab worlds; in this case France/Morocco.The clashes of proud histories, cultures, religions and National Identities have never truly blended, rather becoming inextricably interwoven, and have fuelled pockets of rival nationalism and extremism. This has progressed to feuds within families and terrorism as people find it challenging to live side by side, overlooking their similarities and focussing on difference. Such international situations can feel distant and anonymous until personal stories bring them closer to us.
Set in Morocco in the late 40s early 50s, this is the story of Mathilde, a French woman and Amine a Moroccan, who has fought on the side of the French during WW2. They move to Amine’s family farm where they try to establish a life for themselves from frugal beginnings. Life is hard and becomes even harder as family and political tensions heat up.
This book takes you to another place, perhaps less familiar, and another era. There is an enjoyment of spending time with the characters which changes to a genuine concern for them as tensions rise towards the end, leaving one both entertained and educated.

A beautifully written and heart rending story, told in the voices of several characters, about the period leading up to Moroccan independence.

I found the writing to be incredibly beautiful and evocative but at times the books jumps time periods and we see from perspectives of characters we have not previously heard of quite abruptly.

This book focuses on some intense and difficult subjects but is definitely worth reading and is very thought provoking.

“At that moment, they both belonged to a camp that didn’t exist… All the feelings that rose inside them seemed like a form of treachery, and so they preferred to stay silent.”

Otherness, identity, culture clash and non-belonging are at the core of this sweeping #historicalnovel set in Morocco in the period 1947 to 1955, the dawn of Moroccan independence from France. In this time of growing discontent toward the French occupiers we meet Mathilde, a tall, green-eyed Alsatian woman married to Amine, a Moroccan soldier in the French army she met during WW2. They have just arrived in Meknes on an old cart, ready to take possession of Amine’s inherited farm 15 miles from town. Is it going to work?
Soon the two are at odds. Amine desires his wife but starts feeling the pull of the local male-dominated culture; he wishes his wife would let go of her spontaneity and European manners, which had attracted him in the first place, to become a more subdued woman. In her extreme loneliness and sense of foreignness, Mathilde will have to learn how to fit in – often the hard way – while still trying to keep an emancipated role in the world and ties with French culture. Characterisation is superbly nuanced and, despite the novel not being plot-driven, the account of how Mathilde and Amine's relationship unfolds is an engrossing reading experience. The author paints a truly complex picture as the two are pariahs rejected both in their respective and adoptive communities.
This is the first volume of an intended trilogy. Here Sleimani is intent on setting the scene, wonderfully recreating the complex historical context and the sense of place, the heat, life on the farm and in the town – the medina with its “ancestral values” and “the European town, a laboratory of modernity”. She also gives life to a strong cast of secondary characters, representing different positions from superstitious peasants, to fanatics, colonists and Francophiles . An excellent postcolonial novel and a thought-provoking read.

My thanks to the publisher for an arc of this novel via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Full disclosure, I loved Leila Slimani’s previous book “Lullaby” so was thrilled to have the opportunity to read her latest novel “The Country of Others”. It tells the story of Mathilde a young French woman who leaves her home for a new life in Morocco having married Amine. Mathilde is desperate for adventure and bored with small town life, so when she meets and falls in love with a dashing young army recruit she thinks her life has changed for the better. She moves to his family farm in Morocco to begin her new life and has to learn the traditions, and language of her new homeland. Life is hard for her and soon she understands what she has sacrificed for love. I found this book heartbreakingly sad at times. The depiction of life for women in a country full of traditions and ideas that mean they have no say and virtually no freedom seems alien to a modern day reader. Mathilde’s desperate search for happiness and fulfilment is so movingly portrayed. Amine is at times a modern thinker - especially when it comes to the education of his daughter and his farming practices but then he contradicts this by his attitude to his younger sister who is forced into a marriage against her will. I loved all the characters in this book as they were so clearly depicted - I felt I knew them. The book is set against the backdrop of Morocco fighting for independence from France and I found this fascinating as its a subject I know virtually nothing about and it made me want to find out more. I realise I haven’t said a great deal about the story in this review and I have done this on purpose as one of the delights of this book is discovering where life takes Mathilde and Amine so to say too much would spoil that.
I loved this book and giving it only 5 stars seems inadequate for what is in my opinion fabulous, masterly writing. I can’t wait to read Leila Slimani’s next book, and the one after too…..
Thanks to Faber and Faber Ltd for the opportunity to read this ahead of its UK publication.

Having read Slimani's other novels I was very excited for this, however it wasn't quite what I'd hoped for. Definitely not as engrossing as previous work but still a great read.

A woman from Alsace arrives with her new husband in his Moroccan homeland, it feels alien to her, but she learns the language, accepts that things will never be what she thought they would be. She tries to push for education for his sister and sends their daughter to a convent school in an attempt to change things. We see problems with his family, not just the blossoming beauty of his young sister, which can only mean trouble, but a sullen younger brother on the verge of anarchy and resistance against the French. The mixed marriage and offspring add to the tension of the political situation.
This was a really compelling story, where a terrible dread of impending violence or at the very least a great disappointment hover over all the characters. Love is in short supply; a doomed romance for the sister, a marriage lacking In tenderness for the wife and uncertainty for the daughter.
I enjoyed the way the narrative switched to different characters, it made me feel more involved with them, and I was so immersed that the ending took me by surprise.

The Country of Others is the first of a trilogy apparently based on Leila Slimani's family and it reminded me of the scope of the series of Neopolitan novels by Elena Ferrante.

After the end of WW2 Mathilde, a young French woman marries Amine, a Moroccan soldier. In the hope of adventure she leaves her home in Alsace to live and farm in Amine's native land. The couple builds a family together during the 1950s against the background of Moroccan independence. Mathilde soon realises how hard and different life is for a non-native woman and feels marginalised. Her mixed-race daughter Aicha, a sensitive and observant girl, suffers her own problems growing up but I sensed the result would be a strong-willed young woman.

I did not enjoy the dense prose employed in The Country Of Others although, as in Slimani's prior contemporary novels, the characterisation is exceptional. The description of the clashing of cultures is also well-observed and for many readers this may be enough reason to enjoy the novel. Thanks to NetGalley and Faber & Faber for the opportunity to read and review The Country of Others although I do hope Ms. Slimani writes more in the vein of Lullaby and Adele in the future.

Mathilde, a French woman marries a Moroccan soldier during WW2 and moves to Morocco to start a family and help run the family farm. The story takes place in the 1940s and 50s during the struggle for Moroccan independence from France. On the whole I enjoyed the book but it seems like some characters were introduced and then not mentioned again. Both Mathilde's mother in law who moved into the farm and her sister in law, Selma, who also moved and made a less than ideal marriage were subsequently forgotten. I would especially have liked Selma's story to have been more developed.

1944 and Mathilde leaves France to join her husband in Morocco.
She is now living a different life as a farmer's wife and feels unfulfilled and stifled.. She is a foreigner in a strange land with no friends. She becomes more an more restless and cracks begin to show.
Morocco is struggling for independence and soon Mathilde gets caught up in it all. Will she survive in Morocco and will her marriage survive?

Thanks to NetGalley and The Publisher for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I found the narration style really cold and detached and therefore couldn't muster any feelings, good or bad, towards any of the characters and couldn't care less about what happened to them. Too observational and meandering without enough insights for my tastes. I found it hard to engage and often found my mind wondering whilst reading this. I envisioned a different type of story from reading the blurb and this couldn't be further away from my expectations. Maybe my assumptions have prevented me from being able to appreciate the sentiments the author wished to convey as others seem to have enjoyed this much more than me.

An interesting read from a period in history I knew nothing about.

Mathilde meets and marries her Moroccan husband, Amine, when he spends time in Alsace fighting in the war for France. She is young and has a very romantic and naive idea of married life in Morocco.

On arriving in Morocco she quickly realised that it won’t all be as perfect as she thought, but she works hard to adapt and accept her role as a French wife and mother in a very Arabic family.

I did feel that the book dragged on a little and so struggled to finish it

Please note that this review is based on an advanced copy of the book. Many thanks to NetGalley and Faber and Faber Ltd. for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I think I expected too much of this book. I had heard a lot about the author and requested the book as soon as I saw it, also for my interest in the main topics covered. There's racism and xenophobia, there's the sense of belonging (or lack thereof) when you live in a country different to where you're from (and which "happens to be" a colony of your country), there's culture shock and differences, there's loneliness and trying to make lemonade out of very sour lemons.

I thought I would love this book, but there were a few details that I found offputing and which ultimately made me not enjoy it that much.
The main two things were:

1. Time passes, but we're not given an idea of how much time is passing/has passed between scenes. I found this very confusing (probably furthered by the fact that the conversion to kindle seems to have skipped some blank spaces that could have helped understand the gaps), as most of the time I couldn't tell what age the protagonist's children were (and they were also the main part of the story at that point), so I couldn't understand their behaviour.

2. Some characters seem to have been forgotten. ***SPOILER***For example, Mathilde's mother in law moves to their house, and after that she's never mentioned again, which left me guessing how her adjustment (and that of everyone else) to the new arrangement had been.

Ultimately, these two aspects added up a lot of confusion and I couldn't enjoy the story.

I'm a huge fan of Slimani's brutal literary thrillers, so I wasn't sure what to expect with this broad novel covering history, politics and societal upheaval in Morocco after WW2 but I wasn't disappointed.

Slimani's skill lies in using every day detail to bring to life people's relationships and emotions. I couldn't put this down and despite the horrifying events, I found it ultimately a hopeful novel.

A thought provoking work. This book is set in Morocco after WW2 and tells the story of an interracial family. I believe this is the first book in a trilogy. The author herself is Franco-Moroccan and that adds great credence to the work.
In 'The Country of Others' the main character is Mathilde a young French woman, she leaves her home to live in Morocco with her husband Amine. The couple had met when Amine was stationed in Mathilde's town Alsace, he was a Moroccan soldier fighting for the French. The couple established their family life at a time of Morocco's increased tensions with France and there was continued hostilities. Mathilde had to navigate a life she hadn't imagined. Mathilde is lonely and restless throughout the book. Morocco struggles for its independence. The couple appear not to takes sides and become at odds with everything around them.
I enjoyed this book as I thought it had some realistic portrayal of what life might have been like. There is no rosy outcomes and life does appear to drag on, as does the relationship of this young couple. The book is very descriptive and the characters have really been bought to life, so much so I wanted to be there and do something!
I look forward to the subsequent books by this author

A mixed race family consisting of a young French woman, Mathilde who falls in love with a Moroccan soldier, Amine, stationed in Mathilde's home town at the end of WW2.. Mathilde accompanies Amine to Morocco where they set up home in a remote farm with poor quality soil and little chance of building the good life they hoped to have. They have a daughter Aicha and son Selim.

Mathilde rebels against the life of a Moroccan woman where she feels trapped. Whereas Amine who loves his wife finds it hard to accept her rebellion against life as a wife and mother in a divided Moroccan society. Despite their hardships their marriage survives.

This was clearly well researched. A great history lesson to me.