Literary essays
January 2021
A Smell of Flowers in The Night
by Leïla Slimani
Leïla Slimani, winner of the 2016 prix Goncourt, doesn’t like leaving home and prefers solitude to entertainment. So why agree to spend a sleepless night in the Punta della Dogona Museum in Venice? Reflecting upon the “impossibility” of a book whilst subtly digressing in the Venetian night, Leila Slimani talks about herself, about imprisonment, intimacy, identity, being caught in the middle, between East and West. A discreet, sensitive confession in which the author mentions her father who was once imprisoned. But this book – with its intensity and inner fire – is also about beauty disappearing and how urgently we must make the most of it. It is about the glory of the ephemeral. At dawn, although awake and alert, the author emerges from the building as if from a dream, and all that is left of her night is the smell of flowers.
