The Arab Spring is when Egyptian Youssef Rakha first starts writing novels. Moroccan Soukaina Habiballah publishes her first poetry collection shortly after, while French Moroccan Leïla Slimani works as a journalist at the time, reporting on the protests unfolding throughout Northern Africa and the Maghreb, before turning to fiction.

How have these experiences shaped their writing? All three writers explore the quest for freedom, whether on a personal or a collective level.

Can we talk about a post-Arab Spring literature, or is that merely a handy label for the West?

«Just like Arab Muslim lives, Arab Muslim writing is not worth the civilized world’s attention,» Rakha wrote in an essay in Guernica last year.

Soukaina Habiballah is the award-winning author of four poetry collections, a short story collection, a novel and a play, Nini Ya Momo.

Youssef Rakha was selected among the Hay Festival’s best Arabic writers under 40 in 2009. He is the author of a number of critically acclaimed novels and poetry, most recently the novel The Dissenters.

Leïla Slimani is one of the most prominent literary voices in Frankophone literature today. She won the prestigious Prix Goncourt in 2016 for her novel Lullaby, and has excited critics with her trilogy of a French-Moroccan family saga.

Habiballah, Rakha and Slimani was joined by journalist and critic Helene Hovden Hareide for a conversation about freedom and revolutions, about the power of literature for readers, authors and for moving the world forward.

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