Mourad and his family live in Nice. His retired father spends his days fixing up things in the backyard; his mother, bemoaning the loss of her natal village in North Africa. Dounia, the eldest, is a staunch feminist; Mina, the youngest, blushes when the scented shower gel ad comes on. Mourad is strangely torn between a desire for freedom and the fear of his worst nightmare: that of becoming an overweight bachelor with salt and pepper hair. On her eighteenth birthday, Dounia leaves home for good. She is no longer part of the family. Ten years later, Mourad's father has a stroke and makes his son promise to patch things up with his estranged sister, now a lawyer with an aspiring career in politics. Appointed to the Parisian suburbs as a teacher-in-training, Mourad tracks down Dounia and battles to span the gulf separating her and the rest of the family.

He thought I'd forged my mom's name on the slip. How stupid is that? On this thing Mom just made a kind of squiggly shape on the page. That jerk didn't even think about what he was saying, didn't even ask himself why her signature might be weird. He's one of those people who think illiteracy is like AIDS. It only exists in Africa.
--from "Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow
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"A tale for anyone who has ever lived outside looking in, especially from that alien country called adolescence. A funny, heartfelt story from a wise guy who happens to be a girl. If you've ever fallen in love, if you've ever had your heart broken, this story is your story." -- Sandra Cisneros, author of THE HOUSE ON MANGO STREET
The Paradise projects are only a few metro stops from Paris, but here it's a whole different kind of France. Doria's father, the Beard, has headed back to their hometown in Morocco, leaving her and her mom to cope with their "mektoub"--their destiny--alone. They have a little help-- from a social worker sent by the city, a psychiatrist sent by the school, and a thug friend who recites Rimbaud.
It seems like fate's dealt them an impossible hand, but Doria might still make a new life. She'll prove the projects aren't only about rap, soccer, and religious tension. She'll take the Arabic word kif-kif (same old, same old) and mix it up with the French verb kiffer (to really like something). Now she has a whole new motto: KIFFE KIFFE TOMORROW.
"Moving and irreverent, sad and funny, full of rage and intelligence. Guene's] characters are unforgettable, her voice fresh, and her book a delight." -- Laila Lalami, author of Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits
Faiza Guene, the child of Algerian immigrants, grew up in the public housing projects of Pantin, outside Paris. This is her first book.

Yamina Taleb is approaching her seventieth birthday. Not that she's sure exactly when to celebrate it, since her Algerian identity papers state a different date of birth to her French ones. These days, Yamina strives for a quiet life and to be, at best, invisible. The closest she gets to drama is flashing her pensioner's bus pass in the style of police officers she's seen on television or scooping 'revolutionary' bargains in the form of plastic kitchenware gadgets. But Yamina's children feel differently. They are made to feel out of place in Paris, and it hurts. Then, for the first time in forty years, the whole family take a holiday from the city - not a return trip to the motherland, but a holiday in France. In the privacy of their villa-with-pool rental, it becomes clear to them all: there is no 'going back'. Alternating fragments from Yamina's Algerian past with those of her Paris present, Discretion spans the history of colonial conflict from the Second World War to the present day. A tribute to mothers everywhere, it is also the story of a modern French family feeling their way through the puzzle of their history - and finding one another as they go along.

When Yamina left Algeria behind, along with the remains of her beloved fig tree, she hoped she would be creating a better life for her beloved family. At the very least, an easier one. But Yamina's children aren't convinced. Off-kilter in a country that isn't entirely their own, they don't understand their mother's calm gratitude in the face of hardship. Omar wonders whether it's too late to change course as he watches the world pass him by from the driver's seat of his Uber. His sisters are tired of having to prove themselves - and their allegiance - to a place that is at once home and not. Together, the siblings must learn that resistance takes many forms as they set out to preserve the stories of their past.

Fifteen-year-old Doria isn't in a good place. Or to be precise: she's in the sadly misnamed Paradise Estate on the outskirts of Paris. Her father has gone off back Morocco to find a wife who can give him a boy, and her illiterate, non French-speaking mother is having to fend for herself with a cleaning job in a grim motel. What's more, her favourite soap star has turned out to be gay and it looks like the only school that is going to accept Doria is the one for future hairdressers. Still, it could be worse: Doria could be like Samra, the girl in the flat above, whose father doesn't let her out, or Youssef who has been banged up for a year for dealing in drugs and stolen cars. At least Hamoudi - twenty-eight and the coolest guy on the estate - is her friend. And at least she gets a free weekly session with psychologist Mrs Burland, who is about the only person who listens, even if she doesn't quite understand... In this fabulous first novel, Faiza Guene has created an unforgettable voice. Doria is both clued up and innocent, acutely aware of what's in store for her and powerless to change it. She is funny, clever and tragically trapped. But in the end, her dogged determination not to be down-trodden and humiliated wins through and it looks like things can only get better.

When Ahleme'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. Her 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. Her brother boils over with adolescent energy and teeters dangerously close to choosing a life of crime. And as a temporary resident, Ahleme 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," Faiza Guene 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.