Chaos of the senses

Awarded the Naguib Mahfouz Prize and the Nour Prize for Best Female Work in Arabic for Memory in the Flesh, Algerian novelist Ahlam Mosteghanemi is a unique voice in Arabic literature. Politically engaged, she expresses the revolt of both a woman and a people. Nourished by French culture, she has managed to craft a highly personal style, whose sensuality and lyricism never exclude irony.

In the Algeria of the 1980s, ravaged by corruption and fanaticism, the wife of an Algerian military officer close to the regime experiences a devastating passion for a stranger. This affair draws her into the very heart of the chaos of the senses, but also into a story where dream and reality intertwine. For the man she loves, without knowing anything about him, may not be who she thinks he is—even though he bears an uncanny resemblance to the hero of the short story she is in the process of writing...

Between pain and nostalgia, anger and denunciation, this dazzling and unsettling love story—a fresco of Algeria over the past twenty years—confirms the immense talent of Ahlam Mosteghanemi.