"Originally published in French in 2017 by Flammarion, France, as L'Art de perdre"--Title page verso.

"A gripping, multigenerational tale of a French Algerian woman, her family's past, and the legacies of colonialism"--

The Algerian War for Independence sent Na�ima’s grandfather on a journey, from wealthy olive grove owner and respected veteran of the First World War, to refugee spurned as a harki by his fellow Algerians in the transit camps of southern France, to immigrant barely scratching out a living in the north. Na�ima knows Algeria only by the artifacts she encounters in her grandparents’ tiny apartment in Normandy: the language her grandmother speaks but Na�ima can’t understand, the food her grandmother cooks, and the precious things her grandmother carried when they fled. Na�ima's father claims to remember nothing; he has made himself French. Now Na�ima is traveling to Algeria to see for herself what was left behind-- including her family's secrets. -- adapted from jacket

Translated from the French.