Dreams from the Endz

'A funny, intimate and timely book by one of the stars of tomorrow' - Sunday Telegraph

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

Dreams from the Endz is the extraordinary second novel from France's talented young writer Faïza Guène... Moving from Paris to Algeria, Guène's witty and engaging writing details the impact of politics on everyday lives and what happened when people cannot achieve their dreams

Refreshingly easy to slip in and out of...slang-filled and sassy.

Very well written and well translated. Alheme is a very appealing protagonist...and importantly, she's one of the only young muslim women in fiction that I've ever found authentic. This is fresh, fascinating literature - and look out for the extremely appropriate last sentence.

Emerging from both the new multicultural Europe and the deprived housing schemes surrounding its cities, this book gives a voice to those who are rarely allowed to share their experiences with the mainstream.

This is a witty and tender story told with great compassion that nevertheless manages to make forceful political points

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.

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.

Just Like Tomorrow

A brilliantly poignant and street-wise first novel by a young rising star.

Full of humanity and wry humour, stuffed with memorable characters, praised to the skies by Le Monde, Le Figaro, Elle and just about every other newspaper and magazine, the novel is a kind of French White Teeth. L'Expresse's critic called Guene "a phenomenon filled with vital energy"'

A slim, wry, slangy first novel . . . The mocking but surprisingly un-angry Doria makes some unexpected observations

There's humanity, humour, toughness and much more in this book

Written in sparkling form . . . A hit in France and deserves to be so here

Faiza Guene has produced in Doria a teenage heroine who speaks up for a new and previously unheard cast of dispossessed characters . . . Entertaining as well as searing, a sparky, engaging story . . . This is literature that needs to be read

Faiza Guene is now twenty years old and is currently a university student. Like her heroine, she is from an immigrant North African family living on a housing estate outside Paris. She has written a screenplay for and directed a short film which received funding from several prestigious cultural organisations.

Fifteen-year-old Doria isn't in a good place. Or to be precise: she's in the sadly misnamed Paradise Estate on the outskirts of Paris. Her father has gone off back Morocco to find a wife who can give him a boy, and her illiterate, non French-speaking mother is having to fend for herself with a cleaning job in a grim motel. What's more, her favourite soap star has turned out to be gay and it looks like the only school that is going to accept Doria is the one for future hairdressers. Still, it could be worse: Doria could be like Samra, the girl in the flat above, whose father doesn't let her out, or Youssef who has been banged up for a year for dealing in drugs and stolen cars. At least Hamoudi - twenty-eight and the coolest guy on the estate - is her friend. And at least she gets a free weekly session with psychologist Mrs Burland, who is about the only person who listens, even if she doesn't quite understand... 
 
In this fabulous first novel, Faiza Guene has created an unforgettable voice. Doria is both clued up and innocent, acutely aware of what's in store for her and powerless to change it. She is funny, clever and tragically trapped. But in the end, her dogged determination not to be down-trodden and humiliated wins through and it looks like things can only get better.

Faiza Guéne

Sarah Ardizzone

The various monologues very cleverly paint the picture of a day in the life of this deprived society; [it] is very thoroughly and convincingly done... She writes with intelligence and sympathy, with humour and understanding

Engaging... Along with the corpse himself, [the suspects] tell their stories in a series of monologues, and this is where Guène, with the help of an excellent translation by Ardizzone, really shines

One of the most exciting novelists to emerge in recent years

Brilliantly paced... and utterly distinctive

Guène is praised as a multicultural heroine. And to her credit, she turns stereotypes on their heads; the people of Making-Ends-Meet are an authentic community, whose humanity endears them to us, however gritty or kitsch their veneer

The book is well drawn and very French, yet sounds so urgently British/London, it's charming and quick to read and allows an insight into the txt-ridden, low motivation, high octane lives of kids today, distractions, influences and warts, and all

Joël, aka 'The Rink' (because his bald patch is shiny enough to skate on), the unpopular owner of the only bar in town has been murdered. There are so many suspects, it's not so much a question of who did kill him as who didn't. 
 
There's Magalie, the temperamental teenager obsessed with Paris Hilton; her troublemaker boyfriend, Tani; Tani's mother, Madame Levi; her unemployed, daytime-TV addicted husband; Yeznig, their younger son, who has learning difficulties but perfect memory recall; and newcomers Ali and Nadia, the Muslim twins struggling to fit in. 
 
As the tension mounts and we're still none the wiser, the ending is as tragic as it is unexpected.

Faiza Guéne

Praise for Bar Balto

The various monologues very cleverly paint the picture of a day in the life of this deprived society; [it] is very thoroughly and convincingly done... She writes with intelligence and sympathy, with humour and under ...

Engaging... Along with the corpse himself, [the suspects] tell their stories in a series of monologues, and this is where Guène, with the help of an excellent translation by Ardizzone, really shines

One of the most exciting novelists to emerge in recent years

The various monologues very cleverly paint the picture of a day in the life of this deprived society; [it] is very thoroughly and convincingly done... She writes with intelligence and sympathy, with humour and under ...

Engaging... Along with the corpse himself, [the suspects] tell their stories in a series of monologues, and this is where Guène, with the help of an excellent translation by Ardizzone, really shines

One of the most exciting novelists to emerge in recent years

The various monologues very cleverly paint the picture of a day in the life of this deprived society; [it] is very thoroughly and convincingly done... She writes with intelligence and sympathy, with humour and under ...

Engaging... Along with the corpse himself, [the suspects] tell their stories in a series of monologues, and this is where Guène, with the help of an excellent translation by Ardizzone, really shines

One of the most exciting novelists to emerge in recent years

Books by Faiza Guéne

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