num_pages: 288
description: In a crumbling colonial mansion besieged by slums in the old quarter of Algiers Lamia lives a life of self-imposed isolation communing only with her ghosts by day working as a paediatrician by day. Her family are dead but for her beloved brother Sofiane who has become a harraga  one of those who risk their lives attempting to flee the country for a better life in Europe/elsewhere.Lamia's tranquil ordered existence is turned upside-down when a sixteen-year-old stranger knocks on her door in the middle of the night. Only because she has been sent by Sofiane Lamia takes the girl in. Pregnant unmarried and dressed in garish finery like an X-Factor contestant Chrifa is talkative curiously innocent and utterly unafraid. She enters the house like a whirlwind and leaves a trail of destruction in her wake. Lamia must try to teach her to protect her against a world where a woman who is not meek subservient married is an affront where a girl who is pregnant can be killed to spare her family's honour.By turns funny and lyrical luminous and sardonic Harraga by the controversial author of An Unfinished Business is the engaging and ultimately tragic story of two very different women who become friends and allies in a patriarchal world. - See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/harraga-...
language: English
title: Harraga
publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC