The Art of Losing

Naïma has always known that her family came from Algeria – but up until now, that meant very little to her. Born and raised in France, her knowledge of that foreign country is limited to what she's learnt from her grandparents' tiny flat in a crumbling French sink-estate: the food cooked for her, the few precious things they brought with them when they fled.
On the past, her family is silent. Why was her grandfather Ali forced to leave? Was he a harki – an Algerian who worked for and supported the French during the Algerian War of Independence? Once a wealthy land-owner, how did he become an immigrant scratching a living in France?
Naïma's father, Hamid, says he remembers nothing. A child when the family left, in France he re-made himself: education was his ticket out of the family home, the key to acceptance into French society.
But now for the first time since they left, one of Ali's family is going back. Naïma will see Algeria for herself, will...