Leila Slimani’s Goncourt’s award-winning novel The Perfect Nanny (also known as Lluaby) will be turned into a motion picture. Pascal Caucheteux of Why Not Productions and Phillippe Gordeau of Pan-Européenne are producing the film. Rosa Attab will serve as the executive producer.
Slimani, originally from Rabat, is the first Moroccan woman to win France’s most prestigious literary prize, the Prix Goncourt in 2016. The Prix Goncourt in French literature is given by the académie Goncourt to the author of “the best and most imaginative prose work of the year”. Slimani also won the La Mamounia Prize for Adèle (2015), a literary award donated by Morocco‘s La Mamounia hotel in Marrakech.
The Perfect Nanny also made it onto The New York Times Book Review‘s 10 Best Books of 2018. The novel tells the story of Myriam, a lawyer who returns to work after having children. Myriam and her husband find the perfect nanny for their son and daughter, however, the couple’s experience with the nanny is less than idyllic. Jealousy, resentment, and suspicions quickly mount.
Penguin Books writes “The Perfect Nanny is a compulsive, riveting, bravely observed exploration of power, class, race, domesticity, motherhood, and madness—and the American debut of an immensely talented writer.” People Magazine called it “a slim dagger of a novel . . . You won’t move until you reach the last page.”
Slimani wears many hats. She is a human rights and women’s advocate and the French president Emmanuel Macron’s personal representative. She also speaks for the promotion of the French language and culture. Vanity Fair France ranked Slimani #2 on a list for The Fifty Most Influential French People in the World. She is married and lives in Paris with her husband and their two children.