« Having first burst onto the scene in 1996, the unique and searing voice of Maïssa Bey hasn’t been silenced since. »
—Télérama

She killed a man, her husband. She’s released from prison, 15 years later. After having served her time, can she really find her freedom? Now home, she recreates the conditions of her imprisonment but the wall’s are different and the constraints are of her own choosing.

To be a woman in Algeria is already conducive to isolation and silence. To be a woman convicted for having taken the life of a man…well, there are no words. Women don’t kill, they give life. She is therefore a double anomaly: she didn’t have children and she took a man’s life.

A woman claiming to do research bursts into her life. Day after day, these two women from different walks of life will develop a special bond through the strength of their words.

This is a novel about the daily violence in a society that is unforgiving towards women and about the true violence that a woman can be subjected to…until, on occasion, she does what can’t be undone.

Maïssa Bey, born in 1950, is an Algerian author and educator. . Since 1996, she has published 9 novels and the recipient of several prizes, including Grand Prize of Algerian Booksellers for her body of work in 2005.