Some Dream for Fools

When Ahlème's mother was killed in a village massacre,she left Algeria for France with her father and brotherand never returned. Now, more than a decade later, she ispractically French, yet in many ways she remains an outsider.Her dreams for a better life have been displaced by the harshrealities she faces every day. Her father is unable to workafter an accident at his construction site. Her brother boilsover with adolescent energy and teeters dangerously close tochoosing a life of crime. And as a temporary resident, Ahlèmecould at any moment be sent back to a village and a life thatare now more foreign than Paris.In Some Dream for Fools, Faïza Guène explores thedisparity between the expectations and limitations of immigrant life in the West and tells a remarkable story of onewoman's courage to dream.

FAÏZA GUÈNE, the child of Algerian immigrants, grew up in the public housing projects of Pantin, outside Paris. She is twenty-four years old.