Like the autobiographical hero of this, his classic first novel, Mouloud Feraoun grew up in the rugged Kabyle region of French-controlled Algeria, where the prospects for most Muslim Berber men were limited to shepherding or emigrating to France for factory work. While Feraoun escaped such a fate by excelling in the colonial school system--as a student and, later, as a teacher at the Ecole Normale--he remained firmly rooted in Kabyle culture. This dual perspective only enhanced his view, often brutally, of the ravages on his country by poverty, colonial rule, and a world war that descended...