Some Dream for Fools

A novel of a twentysomething, Algerian-born woman living on the edge in France, from “one of the hottest literary talents of multicultural Europe” (Sunday Telegraph).

When Ahlème’s mother was killed in a village massacre, she left Algeria for France with her father and brother and never returned. Now, more than a decade later, she is practically French, yet in many ways she remains an outsider. Ahlème’s dreams for a better life have been displaced by the harsh realities she faces every day. Her father is unable to work after an accident at his construction site and her brother boils over with adolescent energy, teetering dangerously close to choosing a life of crime. As a temporary resident, Ahlème could at any moment be sent back to a village and a life that are now more foreign than Paris.
 
In Some Dream for Fools, Faïza Guène explores the disparity between the expectations and limitations of immigrant life in the West and tells a remarkable story of one woman’s courage to dream.

“With a keen eye for detail and a sharp narrative tone, [Guène] gives voice to a hurt too long unrecognized. . . . [She] takes us into another world—a world that no nation today can afford to ignore.” —The Christian Science Monitor