This prize-winning novel, the first to be written by an Algerian woman in Arabic, is concerned with Algeria's struggle against fo r eign domination as well as its post-independence struggle with itself a nd the fate of revolutionary ideals in a post-revolutionary society. The sto r y, spanning mo r e than four decades of Algerian histo r y, fr om the 1940s to the 1980s, revolves around a love affair between Khaled, the middle-aged militant who turns to painting after losing his left arm in the struggle, a nd the fiction writer a nd young daughter of his friend the freedom fighter Si Taher, all brilliantly told through Khaled's voice. It was features such as this convincing embodiment of a male voice alongside narrative techniques in which the autho r subtly joins the acheivements of wo r ld literature with that of local sto r ytelling a nd traditional modes of narration that particularly impressed the judges who awarded this novel the Naguib Mahfouz Medal fo r Literature.