Yamina Taleb is approaching her seventieth birthday. Not that she's sure exactly when to celebrate it, since her Algerian identity papers state a different date of birth to her French ones. These days, Yamina strives for a quiet life and to be, at best, invisible. The closest she gets to drama is flashing her pensioner's bus pass in the style of police officers she's seen on television or scooping 'revolutionary' bargains in the form of plastic kitchenware gadgets. But Yamina's children feel differently. They are made to feel out of place in Paris, and it hurts. Then, for the first time in forty years, the whole family take a holiday from the city - not a return trip to the motherland, but a holiday in France. In the privacy of their villa-with-pool rental, it becomes clear to them all: there is no 'going back'. Alternating fragments from Yamina's Algerian past with those of her Paris present, Discretion spans the history of colonial conflict from the Second World War to the present day. A tribute to mothers everywhere, it is also the story of a modern French family feeling their way through the puzzle of their history - and finding one another as they go along.

About the Author
Faiza Guene is a bestselling and award-winning French Algerian writer and director. Spotted at a writing workshop at the age of eighteen, she made an astonishing literary debut with her international bestseller, Kiffe kiffe demain (Just Like Tomorrow), which has been translated into more than thirty languages. Her other novels in English include Dreams from the Endz, Bar Balto, and Men Don't Cry. Guene has acquired a reputation as one of France's most unique contemporary literary voices. She has directed several short films and is a co-writer on Disney Star's mini-series Oussekine (forthcoming May 2022). Sarah Ardizzone has translated more than fifty titles from around the French-speaking world, including by Daniel Pennac, Gael Faye, Alain Mabanckou and Yasmina Reza. Her translation of Faiza Guene's Kiffe-Kiffe Demain (Just Like Tomorrow) won the Scott Moncrieff Prize and the IBBY UK Honour title, and was shortlisted for the Young Minds Book Award and longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

Reviews
'Faiza Guene is an important voice in French literature, rebelliously dissecting ideas of home, identity and belonging with a universally accessible intimacy and power.' Diana Evans


Awards
Winner of Prix Maryse Conde 2020.



Book Information
ISBN 9780863564024
Author Faiza Guene
Format Hardback
Page Count 240
Imprint Saqi Books
Publisher Saqi Books
Dimensions(mm) 223mm * 141mm * 19mm