FROM THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLING AUTHOR

'Personal life, social life, everyday life spring vividly from the page, and we feel deeply for the family caught in the middle of the conflict of history.' SALMAN RUSHDIE, on The Country of Others

'Slimani is a fearless writer.' EVENING STANDARD

'Leïla Slimani has a knack for breaking taboos.' TIMES

Q: If your house was burning down, what would you take with you?
A: I'd take the fire.

This is the story of two sisters, Mia and Inés. Two girls enveloped in love, trapped by social conventions of Casablanca at the dawn of the 21st Century and silenced by the political 'truths' that envelop their lives.

Mia - the older sister, a warrior and a pariah, her sexuality a matter of scorn, a truth to be erased.

Inés - the little sister, a woman trying to carve out an identity in a Paris that derides and erases her with no way back to Morocco, a homeland her father has warned her never to return for her own sake.

As these sisters struggle to find a home, a place of safety and love that holds rather than binds this story their lives as framed by their mothers and grandmothers before them will be a battle for their hearts and souls, and one they take on with every sinew of their being.