DREAMS FROM THE ENDZ

Faïza Guène’s first novel Just Like Tomorrow (Kiffe kiffe demain), published in 2004 when the author was just nineteen, became an instant bestseller and has been adopted as a set text in French schools. Her second novel, Dreams from the Endz (Du rêve pour les oufs) is somewhat bleaker in tone, narrated by a young woman whose mother was killed 13 years ago in a village massacre in Algeria, and whose father has suffered brain damage in an industrial accident. ‘Guène is too important a writer to dismiss because she conveys a generally unsettling message,’ wrote Nicholas Tucker in the Independent. ‘As before, she deserves to be heard.’