The Virtuous by Yasmina Khadra opens in the luxuriance of a tale of Thousand and one Night. In what is not even a village, a tiny douar in the Algerian Sahara that bears no name, the young and poor Yacine is summoned to the home of someone who presents himself as the all-powerful lord of the surroundings. His domain shines with a thousand lights in the night. What Yacine does not know is that the First World War will soon begin. His meeting with the terrible Gaïd Brahim will change the course of his life and suddenly propel him into the nightmare of the trenches. It is the kickoff of a novel of adventures and training that follows Yacine and his generation in colonial Algeria in the first half of the 20th century.
