MAF Presents: Award-winning Author and Activist Leïla Slimani in Conversation with “Curator of Public Curiosity” Paul Holdengräber

• September 30, 2026 | 7pm

A very special evening in MAF’s Window Gallery with acclaimed French Moroccan author, activist, and cultural figure Leïla Slimani and esteemed cultural interlocutor Paul Holdengräber. The wide-ranging discussion will touch on Slimani’s fearless literary explorations of sexuality, gender, identity, freedom, and the pressures that shape contemporary life: including her 2026 novel, I’ll Take the Fire, which along with the novels In the Country of Others (2020) and Watch Us Dance (2023), is the third in a family-history trilogy set in post-World War II Morocco.

Born in Rabat, Morocco, in 1981, Leïla Slimani left for Paris at seventeen to study at Sciences Po, and where she began her career as a journalist. Slimani was the first female recipient of France’s La Mamounia Prize for her first novel, Adèle (Dans le jardin de l’ogre), published in 2014, and an awardee of the Goncourt Prize—France’s most prestigious literary honor—for her second, 2016’s The Perfect Nanny. The international success of the book meant its translation into multiple languages, its recognition as one of The New York Times Book Review’s “10 Best Books of 2018,” and its adaptation for film.

In 2017 Slimani published her essay Sex and Lies, a series of intimate testimonies from women in the Arab world that highlight sexual politics and gendered silences. Beyond such illuminating literary output, her advocacy for women’s self-determination and sexual freedom led to her being honored with the Simone de Beauvoir Prize for Women’s Freedom. Most recently Slimani has been a participant in the Museo del Prado’s “Writing in the Prado” residency in Madrid, Spain, where she is developing a new literary work inspired by her experiences at the museum.

Paul Holdengräber is an acclaimed interviewer and interlocutor. He was the founding executive director of Onassis Los Angeles (OLA), and the founder and director of The New York Public Library’s LIVE from the NYPL—a cultural series, for which he interviewed and hosted more than 600 events featuring such guests as Wes Anderson, Margaret Atwood, Werner Herzog, Salman Rushdie, Patti Smith, Mike Tyson and many more. Before his NYPL tenure, he was the Founder and Director of The Institute for Art & Cultures at Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). He holds a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Princeton University.  In 2003, the French Government named him Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, then, in 2012, promoted him to Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres. In 2010 he was awarded the Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and Art by The President of Austria, Heinz Fischer.

The conversation will be followed by a book sale and signing, hosted by Los Angeles’ Chevalier Books.

Please note: The MAF collection on the third floor will be closed at the time of the event. Tacita Dean: FILM and Pierre Leguillon: Ads & Brands will remain open, so please feel free to come early and enjoy the exhibitions.

Event details:
6:30 pm: Doors and parking (located on Lucerne Blvd)
7 pm: Event begins

MAF is grateful for the generous support provided by Villa Albertine, the French Institute for Culture and Education.