What the Day Owes the Night - Hardcover

Khadra, Yasmina

4.23

7,368 ratings by Goodreads

9780434019939: What the Day Owes the Night

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0434019933 ISBN 13: 9780434019939

Publisher: William Heinemann, 2010

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'If a woman loves you, Younes, if she truly loves you, and if you have the wisdom to appreciate this great privilege, then there is no god to touch you.'

As a young man Younes' life is irrevocably changed when he leaves his broken home for the vibrant, colourful and affluent European district of R�o Salado. Renamed Jonas, he begins a new life and forges a unique friendship with a group of boys, an enduring bond that nothing - not even the Algerian Revolt - will shake.

Yet with the return to R�o Salado of Emilie - a beautiful, beguiling young girl who captures the hearts of all who see her - an epic love story is set in motion that will challenge the complicity of these four boys and force Jonas to confront the burden of having to choose between two worlds: Algerian or European; loyalty or selfishness; past or present; surrendering to fate or grasping control of his own destiny.

In What The Day Owes The Night, Yasmina Khadra has written a majestic novel of colonial Algeria, a turbulent, passionate, heart-rending country. Set against the war of independence and a harsh yet mystic landscape, Khadra's dazzling prose and consummate compassion illuminate the terrible rift between lovers, family and friends who love the same country.

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Review:

"This tale of family, love and war unfolds in Algeria before and during the armed revolt that led to independence. Caught between two worlds, its hero, Younes, is a sympathetic witness to the doctrines that divide people, and to the passions that may reunite them." (Independent)

"A book in which you may lose yourself in reading and find yourself when you put it aside; an enriching work. [What the Day Owes the Night] is first the story of a narrator's youth and education in the ways of the world. Then it is a love story and a war story, which leads to the conclusion that a reader who has surrendered to the novel will hope for. It is very well done indeed, sympathetic and humane. The narrative is compelling and there is a rich cast of well observed, or remembered, characters, all of who are treated fairly and generously...[Khadra] brings landscape, a society, individual characters to compelling life. He explores difficult moral questions with sensibility and intelligence. He presents life as it is, and hints at what it might be. He writes with understanding and affection." (Allan Massie The Scotsman)

"the novel...includes brilliant descriptions of the city's slums and the beauties of the countryside." (Christopher Butler TLS)

Book Description:

The dazzling and vibrant new novel from Yasmina Khadra, author of Sirens of Baghdad and the international bestsellers The Swallows of Kabul and The Attack.

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