Not applicable: Fatima Daas

In France, Fatima Daas’s debut novel, The Youngest Daughter(La petite dernière), was hailed as an eloquent story of female self-empowerment.

The protagonist, Fatima, is the latecomer in her family and the only one born in France, rather than Algeria, who is French. She lives with her family in the Paris banlieue; she travels three hours a day to the university in Paris on public transportation. She bears the name of the Prophet Muhammad’s youngest daughter – “a name to honor. A name that one must not ‘sully’.” Fatima is a practicing Muslim, she loves her God – and women. Fatima is a lesbian.

In every way, she is in between, always. She doesn’t quite belong anywhere, and at the same time refuses to move away from any of these identities. So how to live with this brokenness?

Fatima Daas was born in Saint-Germain-en-Laye in 1995, the youngest child of Algerian parents. Her debut novel was on the French bestseller list for weeks, it is acclaimed by the press and translated into numerous languages. In 2021, it was awarded the International Prize for Literature. Daas describes herself as an intersectional feminist in search of a feminism that accepts her as both a Muslim and a queer woman.

Reading and discussion in German and French.

In the context of the French Week Heidelberg

In cooperation with the Deutsch-Französischer Kulturkreis (dfk) and with the support of the Institut français Germany