Days and nights, light and darkness, grief and joy - in a word, life as it is. Life is like a memory lasting several decades - this is how this complex, psychological, poetic novel about the fate of the Algerian Younes can be characterized. The father, wanting to save his son from poverty, gives nine-year-old Younes to his rich pharmacist brother, and the boy finds himself in the world of white Europeans. There is a war of independence going on in Algeria. The hero faces many changes and trials. The carefree and fun of youth is replaced by disappointment, betrayal, and breaking of friendships. But the only thing that remains unchanged is Younes’s love for the Frenchwoman Emily, who, after the liberation of Algeria from the colonialists, is forced to leave for France. Both he and she were made for each other, but fate decided differently. And was happiness even possible for them?..