In this harrowing novel, a young Moroccan bookseller is falsely accused of being
involved in jihadist activities. Drugged and carried off the street, Hamuda is
“extraordinarily rendered” to a prison camp in an unknown location where he
is interrogated and subjected to various methods of torture.
Narrated through the voice of the young prisoner, the novel unfolds in
Hamuda’s attempt to record his experience once he is finally released after six
years in captivity. He paints an unforgettable portrait of his captors’ brutality
and the terrifying methods of his primary interrogator, a French woman known
as Mama Ghula. With a lucid style, Himmich delivers a visceral tale that explores
the moral depths to which humanity is capable of descending and the
limits of what the soul can endure.
