"It had been more than fifty years since I had returned to Algeria where I was born, from where we had left without anything. I had so often said that I would never go back. And then an opportunity arose: a Mediterranean film festival to which I was invited as a juror in Annaba, a city in eastern Algeria, my region of origin. I took the plane for Annaba in December, I participated in the festival, I felt good, I had the impression of a new fraternity with them all. But when, at the end of the festival, I was about to take the road of the Aurès as agreed to revisit the city and the house of my childhood, an event took place, which stopped everything, everything turned upside down. It's the story of this broken return that I'm doing here. " --Translation of page 4 of cover by Gallimard,