The story of one couple - first from the husband's point of view, then from the wife's. The husband, a painter in Casablanca, has been paralyzed by a stroke at the very height of his career and becomes convinced that his marriage is the reason for his decline. Walled up within his illness and desperate to break free of a deeply destructive relationship, he finds escape in writing a secret book about his hellish marriage. When his wife finds it, she responds point by point with her own version of the facts, offering her own striking and incisive reinterpretation of their story.

Author Biography

TAHAR BEN JELLOUN is an award-winning and internationally bestselling Moroccan novelist, essayist, critic, and poet. Regularly shortlisted for the Nobel Prize, he is also a frequent contributor to Le Monde, La Repubblica, El Pais, Panorama, The New Yorker, and The Paris Review. ANDR NAFFIS-SAHELY is a poet, critic, and translator from French and Italian.