Now in residence at the Madrid Prado, the author talks about its dark, inspirational Goyas, the clandestine nature of her writing \u2013 and why she finally wrote about her jailed then posthumously exonerated father<\/p>\n
It is a bright, chilly spring morning in Madrid, and the Museo del Prado doesn\u2019t open to the public for another hour. Without the crowds, the museum is amorphous and eerily silent. A pale light pools in the corners and casts long shadows around the paintings, as if the figures inside them have slipped quietly into the room. It is here that I meet the French-Moroccan writer Le\u00efla Slimani, who has spent the past two weeks using the space as inspiration for her work.<\/p>\n
With quick strides, Slimani leads us to a basement gallery housing some of her favourite works: Francisco Goya\u2019s dark and haunting Black Paintings, created later in life when the Spanish artist had adopted a particularly bleak outlook<\/a> on humanity. Among them are Saturn Devouring His Son, a violent depiction of the god biting into his own child; The Fates, with its three ominous figures spinning the thread of life; and Witches\u2019 Sabbath (The Great He-Goat), in which the devil appears as a goat presiding over a coven.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/3d81c2eee77fc7a5ba0906bdde8c246b776b8cff\/1411_78_4198_3358\/master\/4198.jpg?width=140&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=f27b52a6f82a0a8de2027e709f31a4cf\" "\\"\u2018Writing")
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