Dreams from the Endz

Dreams from the Endz is the story of twenty-four-year-old Ahlème, who is spirited, sassy and wise but has more problems than she knows how to deal with. Her father, The Boss, is permanently disabled after an accident on a building site, her sixteen-year-old brother, Foued, has been permanently excluded from school and seems intent on joining the drug-dealers who share their estate, while she is left to deal with the guilt trips from their family back in Algeria. But when she returns home - after a ten-year absence - she brokers a kind of truce, both with her homeland and the need to forge a future.

Guène is too important a writer to dismiss because she conveys a generally unsettling message... she deserves to be heard, Super-young, super-cool and fast becoming known as one of the hottest literary talents of multicultural Europe, Guène 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. Our heroine is an unforgettable narrator...it's a funny, intimate and timely book by one of the stars of tomorrow, It's not an exaggeration to suggest that Guène is diong for the people, especially the youth, of the banlieu what James Kelman and Agnes Owens have done for the deprived of Glasgow's housing schemes; that is, give a voice to those who have been excluded from literature...Guène is very evidently a natural novelist, a young writer of real talent, Alhème has a wit, wisdom and charisma that puts the reader firmly on her side as she does her best to find the small scraps of hope she needs to keep her going in tough situations ... Alhème's story gives a voice to people who are more frequently merely voiceless statistics, Guène interweaves political commentary skilfully with daily routine through the voice of Ahleme... Guène does not shy away from discussing difficult issues... This is a novel well worth reading

Faiza Guene was born in France in 1985 to Algerian parents. She wrote her first novel, Just Like Tomorrow, when she was 17 years old. It was a huge success in France, selling over 360,000 copies and translation rights around the world, and was shortlisted for the Young Minds Book Award 2006 and longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2007. Her most recent novel is Bar Balto.