Some Dream for Fools - by Faïza Guène (Paperback)

About the Book

This remarkable story returns readers to the outskirts of Paris, as Ahleme, a 24-year-old immigrant, struggles to make a life for her family, while holding on to the dreams she brought with her from Algeria.

Book Synopsis

Ahlème, a young woman living on the outskirts of Paris, is trying to make a life out of the dreams she brought with her from Algeria and the reality she faces every day. Her father lost his job after an accident at his construction site. Her mother was lost to a massacre in Algeria. And her brother, Foued, boils with adolescent energy and teeters dangerously close to choosing a life of crime.

As she wanders the streets of Paris looking for work, Ahlème negotiates the disparities between her dreams and her life, her youth and her responsibilities, the expectations of those back home and the limitations of life in France.

With the same laugh-out-loud, razor-sharp humor that made Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow an international hit, Some Dream for Fools shows Faïza Guène's evolution as a novelist and reminds us of her extraordinary talent as she explores what happens to people when a lid is put on their dreams.

From the Back Cover

"A promising addition to the world's literary voices." San Francisco Chronicle

From the author of the international phenomenon Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow comes a new novel about a different side of Paris

Praise for Some Dream for Fools from the United Kingdom:

"Super-young, super-cool and fast becoming known as one of the hottest literary talents of multicultural Europe, Guene takes us on a tour of the tough suburbs of Paris and Algeria, where having the wrong-colour passport sentences you to a half-life. A funny, intimate and timely book by one of the stars of tomorrow." The Sunday Telegraph

"Guene is doing for the people, especially the youth, of the banlieu what James Kelman and Agnes Owens have done for the deprived of Glasgow that is, give a voice to those who have been excluded from literature. [A] natural novelist, a young writer of real talent." The Scotsman

Praise for Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow

"[I]nspired the reader can't help cheering." -- The New York Times Book Review

"[Guene s] access to authenticity is matched by a great eye and ear for the funny, infuriating, and hopeful about young womanhood and cultural welter. A-" -- Entertainment Weekly

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Review Quotes

Praise for SOME DREAM FOR FOOLS "Super-young, super-cool and fast becoming known as one of the hottest literary talents of multicultural Europe, Guene takes us on a tour of the tough suburbs of Paris and Algeria, where having the wrong-colour passport sentences you to a half-life. A funny, intimate and timely book by one of the stars of tomorrow." -- Sunday Telegraph, 50 of the best holiday reads (UK)
Praise for KIFFE KIFFE TOMORROW NYTBR Editor's Choice "[C]ompelling... reveals Guene to be a promising addition to the world's literary voices." -- San Francisco Chronicle "Remarkable . . . a glimpse of life beyond the Paris city limits and into a new, multicultural France . . . Heralded as, alternately, a Gallic version of White Teeth, The Catcher in the Rye and Bridget Jones's Diary . . . ." -- Salon --

About the Author

She is the author of Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow.