The narrator of this thoughtful tale is at once observer and outcast. Born in France to Algerian laborers, he exemplifies a successful integration into French society, through the right schools and the proper channels, to a white collar job as an architect. Not for him the angst and posturing of ghetto youth, nor the traditionalism of unassimilated immigrants. Wary of real tradition, suspicious of its trendy adoption in street culture, he is constantly reminded that he belongs neither in Algeria, nor in the France he believed his home.

He embarks on a voyage to Algeria that will take on mythic dimensions. In the heat of the desert he sheds his citydweller’s cynicism, losing both his bearings and his prejudices. When a family of strangers takes him in, showing the hospitality required by custom, he befriends the eldest son, Mozart, a geology student and amateur violinist, and becomes witness to their stories and way of life. History, both that of an individual family and that of a generation, intertwine in tales of the Algerian War and its aftermath. In a voice as comfortable with references to Châteaubriand as to Peter Gabriel, Boudjedia shows how a heritage of dual cultures can be as much a source of isolation as of immeasurable richness.