Narrated by a French Tunisian Jew after a gunman murders tourists on the beach at Sousse in 2015, this novel is told in short, seemingly disjointed chapters, which brilliantly build up a kaleidoscopic picture of the narrator’s Jewish Tunisian parent’s and her life in Tunisia, followed by their exile/permanent move to France. The book is about her leave taking of Tunisia, which her parents had already prepared her for by providing her with a French education, but which the narrator had tried to stave off by making regular return visits.
I’m feverish, my life is parts and pieces, it consists of all these deaths, I must rebuild it to see it better, no one could have foreseen that our world would be so transformed, I’m begging: help me, it’s so you can help me that I’m writing this book. ( )