The Scent of Flowers at Night

Paperback / ISBN-13: 9781529399677

Price: £9.99

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International bestseller

Leïla Slimani’s elegant meditation on life and death, art and beauty, translated by Sam Taylor

‘A revelation – I have never felt more seen by a book, nor have I been so gripped’
KATY HESSEL

‘An engaging meditation’

DAILY TELEGRAPH

In 2019, Leïla Slimani was commissioned by her editor to spend a sleepless night alone in a museum and to document the experience. Here, we find her grappling with the thoughts and ideas that emerge from her solitude as she walks the halls of the Punta della Dogana in Venice, interrogating her life as a woman, a writer and a daughter. In a space where old meets new, she beholds her past and present; surrounded by art, she explores what it means to behold and clasp beauty; enveloped by night, she confronts the meaning of life and death.

Reviews

Slimani's The Scent of Flowers at Night is a revelation - I have never felt more seen by a book, nor have I been so gripped. In such elegant and readable prose, she captures the obsession and joys of writing, and the power of art and words
Katy Hessel
An utterly compelling exploration of memory, art-making and solitude: what it takes, what it costs, to be a daughter, a woman, who writes. I couldn't put it down.
Tanya Shadrick
An engaging meditation on literature, death, deracination and tourism
Lucy Ellmann, Daily Telegraph
Mesmerising. I inhaled this writer's poetic meditation on time and the creative process
Sheena Patel
Heartwarming and sad...accessible and endearing...frank and honest...humorous and affirming
Buzz Listings
Vivid and capable of transporting the reader
The Observer