Some Dream for Fools: Book summary and reviews of Some Dream for Fools by Faiza Guene

Some Dream for Fools Summary

Ahlème, a young woman living on the outskirts of Paris, is trying to make a life out of the dreams she brought with her from Algeria and the reality she faces every day. Her father lost his job after an accident at his construction site. Her mother was lost to a massacre in Algeria. And her brother, Foued, boils with adolescent energy and teeters dangerously close to choosing a life of crime.

As she wanders the streets of Paris looking for work, Ahlème negotiates the disparities between her dreams and her life, her youth and her responsibilities, the expectations of those back home and the limitations of life in France.

With the same laugh-out-loud, razor-sharp humor that made Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow an international hit, Some Dream for Fools shows Faïza Guène’s evolution as a novelist and reminds us of her extraordinary talent as she explores what happens to people when a lid is put on their dreams.

Some Dream for Fools Reviews

"Super-young, super-cool and fast becoming known as one of the hottest literary talents of multicultural Europe, Guene 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. A funny, intimate and timely book by one of the stars of tomorrow - Daily Telegraph

"Guène is too important a writer to dismiss because she conveys a generally unsettling message. As before, she deserves to be heard, and it is hardly her fault that she cannot come up with any easy solution to the problem posed by desperate semi-legal immigrants trying to cope in an increasingly tough political and economic climate." - The Independent

"There's no real plot to this short novel. It's slice-of-life stuff, one thing after another, but it's written so lightly and engagingly that you read on happily." - The Scotsman

"...a fuller account would have added weight to a decidedly slight novel." - Library Journal

"Ahleme is real, and her tenacity, uncompromising toughness and cynical sense of humor give the novel a hint of joy." - Kirkus

"Guène aptly depicts how small joys ... take on weight as Ahlème dreams of the future." - Publishers Weekly

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Faiza Guene Author Biography

The child of Algerian immigrants, Faïza Guène grew up in the public housing projects of Pantin, outside Paris. As told in the novel Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow, she was only 19 when she began writing in order to evoke the lives of young people in an urban environment. She attended the University of St. Denis, and in 2004 she directed and wrote the screenplay her short film, Nothing But Words. Faiza Guène did not abandon writing and published Du rêve pour les oufs in 2006.

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