Résumé

Salim Zerrouki was born in Algiers. He grew up in an unusual building erected for the 1975 Mediterranean Games–a year when Algeria was, for all intents and purposes, a dictatorship. In the story of Salim's upbringing, which he tells with honesty, humility, and humor, the building where he lives becomes a character in its own right, and his memories of childhood and adolescence combine to paint a personal, political, and spiritual portrait of a little-known and terrifying chapter in Algeria's history.