This chilling tale describes the descent of a young Algerian, an aspiring movie actor, who is swept by the soul-crushing forces of poverty and a repressive government into the arms of the Islamist insurgency. A stint as a driver for a wealthy family exposes him to the ruthless abuses of privilege and pushes him in revolusion back to his Muslim faith and from there under the influence of political rhetoric to the fringes of the Resistance, where he becomes an assassin and eventually an armed underground fighter engaging in attacks on government forces.
Along the way there is much bloodshed and sorrow, treachery, betrayal, and unspeakable acts, all in the professed service of God. The author's distate for the Islamist movement in his home country is undisguised, and he has written a disturbing account of its worst excesses. A short novel, it moves with the swiftness of well-written crime fiction. It includes a glossary and a time-line identifying the key dates in Algerian political history from the War of Independence (1954-1962) to the first years of the 21st century.
The book is written by Mohammed Moulessehoul under a female pen name, Yasmina Khadra. He did this to avoid persecution, being an officer in the Algerian Army. He eventually revealed his true identity, years later while in exile in France.
The story follows Nafa Walid, a man who hopes to become an actor in the movie industry, but he begins to gradually loses control of his destiny and becomes drawn into the Algerian Islamic Fundamentalist movement. "Wolf Dreams" shows how dissatisfaction and disillusionment in a corrupt nation can give rise to fundamentalism, and how the chaos of civil war can transform a normal, middle-class young man into an indoctrinated assassin; a man who inflicts pain and terror on others without qualms, and accepts the idea of his own death with the devotion of a true-believing fanatic.
It is definitely worth the time to read; it's gritty and pulls no punches, showing the corruption of the country's aristocracy, but at the same time, it doesn't glorify Islamic fundamentalism. It shows that fighting monsters has a nasty habit of turning people into monsters themselves.
I give it four stars for the reasons mentioned above. It may not be for everyone, but it is an eye-openner to what leads people down the path to terrorism and murder.
