In Quoting constructs§

See primary documentation in context for Escaping: q

'Very plain';
q[This back\slash stays];
q[This back\\slash stays]# Identical output 
q{This is not a closing curly brace → \}, but this is → };
Q :q $There are no backslashes here, only lots of \$\$\$!$;
'(Just kidding. There\'s no money in that string)';
'No $interpolation {here}!';
Q:q!Just a literal "\n" here!;

The q form allows for escaping characters that would otherwise end the string using a backslash. The backslash itself can be escaped, too, as in the third example above. The usual form is '…' or q followed by a delimiter, but it's also available as an adverb on Q, as in the fifth and last example above.

These examples produce:

Very plain
This back\slash stays
This back\slash stays
This is not a closing curly brace → } but this is →
There are no backslashes here, only lots of $$$!
(Just kidding. There's no money in that string)
No $interpolation {here}!
Just a literal "\n" here

The \qq[...] escape sequence enables qq interpolation for a portion of the string. Using this escape sequence is handy when you have HTML markup in your strings, to avoid interpretation of angle brackets as hash keys:

my $var = 'foo';
say '<code>$var</code> is <var>\qq[$var.uc()]</var>';
# OUTPUT: «<code>$var</code> is <var>FOO</var>␤»