The number-one bestseller and winner of the Prix Goncourt - a compulsive, riveting and bravely observed exploration of power, class, race, domesticity and motherhood.
From the bestselling author of Lullaby, the prizewinning debut novel about all our attempts to discover who we are - deep down - and what we actually want.
Alsace 1944: Mathilde follows the soldier she loves home to Morocco. Suffocated by the climate, loneliness, and a mistrust of foreigners, she grows restless. Relations between settlers and natives are tense and her husband is caught in the crossfire; his desire to protect his wife at odds with her desire for freedom, as the increasing violence of Moroccos struggle for independence grows.