Lullaby

“Beautifully written”... “dark and nuanced”... “confident and accomplished”: the judges of the British Book Awards were as captivated by Leïla Slimani’s Lullaby as critics and the 170,000 people who bought it in its various formats in 2018.

A little-known début author in translation didn’t seem the most promising acquisition for Faber & Faber in commercial terms. But the claustrophobic tension and mounting dread—brilliantly preserved by Sam Taylor’s sensitive translation—engrossed retailers, reviewers and readers in turn.

This was a book that traversed genres and that hit the sweet spot between literary and commercial fiction. Pitched at first into psychological thriller territory as the French Gone Girl, it appealed to horror and literary fans alike, and seemed to capture the zeitgeist of middle-class parental angst, without being exploitative or cynical. Faber published it with great passion, with packaging and promotion that appealed to a wide range of readers and an energetic publicity campaign. For a début author Slimani proved to be a superb promoter too, and has laid the foundations for potentially even greater sales for future titles.

Lullaby contributed to a remarkable 2018 for Faber, which also published the Book of the Year, Sally Rooney’s Normal People, and scooped the title of Independent Publisher of the Year. “Faber did an incredible job of launching Lullaby with such confidence and gusto,” said the judges. “To get that kind of coverage and those kind of sales from a writer in translation and with no UK profile is an extraordinary achievement.”