For the inauguration of the 2021 Francophonie festival, the French Embassy is honored to host a talk of Leïla Slimani, Personal representative of the French president Emmanuel Macron for the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie and writer.

Philippe Etienne, Ambassador of France to the United States will introduce the conversation during which Leïla Slimani will discuss the importance of Francophonie in the world and her own path as a francophone writer with the journalist and literary critic Ursula Lindsey.

The conference will take place on March 1, 2021, at 12PM on Zoom and followed by a Q&A session with the audience.

Leïla Slimani is a writer, a frequent commentator on women’s and human rights, and French President Emmanuel Macron’s personal representative for the promotion of the French language and culture. She is the first Moroccan woman to win France’s most prestigious literary prize, the Goncourt, which she won for The Perfect Nanny. Her first novel, Adèle, won the La Mamounia Prize for the best book by a Moroccan author written in French.

Ursula Lindsey is a reporter, essayist, and book reviewer. She reported from Egypt for many years for the BBC-PRI radio program The World, and covered the Arab Spring for Newsweek, The New York Times, The New Yorker online and the New York Review of Books.

The event is conducted in English, free and open to everyone.

All registrants will receive a connection link a few days before the event.