'Striking.' ELLE France
'Brave.' iNews
'Powerful.' TLS
'Urgent.' Evening Standard
'Original.' Cosmopolitan

In these essays, Leïla Slimani gives voice to young Moroccan women who are grappling with a conservative Arab culture that at once condemns and commodifies sex. In a country where the law punishes and outlaws all forms of sex outside marriage, as well as homosexuality and prostitution, women have only two options for their sexual identities: virgin or wife. Sex and Lies is an essential confrontation with Morocco's intimate demons and a vibrant appeal for the universal freedom to be, to love and to desire.

'Leïla Slimani has a knack for breaking taboos. . . Sex and Lies is well executed: the novelist paints vivid portraits of her interviewees.' The Times

'Slimani trusts in her outrage, in the force of her own voice, and the voices of the women she listens to.' Guardian

'Slimani trusts in her outrage, in the force of her own voice, and the voices of the women she listens to.' - Guardian
'This book of impassioned pleas, and of human impulses that resonate, is one step to more women breaking free.' - Evening Standard

Leïla Slimani is the author of Adèle, Sex and Lies and Lullaby, which made Slimani the first Moroccan woman to win France's most prestigious literary prize, the Prix Goncourt. A journalist and frequent commentator on women's and human rights, she is French president Emmanuel Macron's personal representative for the promotion of the French language and culture. Born in Rabat, Morocco, in 1981 and a citizen of France, she divides her time between Paris, Portugal and international commitments that take her around the globe.