Adèle

Leïla Slimani Faber €16

The second of Slimani’s novels to be translated into English is a bold and compassionate account of a female sex addict. Adèle lives in Paris with her affluent husband and young child, but she is far from fulfilled by this superficial domestic bliss, instead scrabbling for release through sex. But her endless affairs fill her with shame and, distressingly, she seeks punishment for her desire at the same time as trying to quench it. An explosive portrait of the claustrophobia that can come with marriage and motherhood and the damaging consequences of stifling women’s sexuality.