They had no idea, when they arrived in Morocco, that their usual freedoms as young European women would not be available. So, when the spry Saleh presents himself as their guide and saviour, they embrace his offer. He extracts them from a tight space, only to lead them inexorably into an even tighter one- and from this far darker space there is no exit.

Their tale of confinement and escape is as old as the landscapes and cultures so vividly depicted in this story of where Europe and Africa come closest to meeting, even if they never quite touch.


'The gifted Dutch writer Tommy Wieringa is a bold, intelligent stylist, unafraid of exposing the ugliness of society juxtaposed with the vagaries of human nature. A taut, intense contemporary thriller of multiple exploitations ... The full mercilessness of the migrant dilemma is confronted here to devastating effect.'
-Eileen Battersby, The Observer

'As scintillating as it is unforgiving, this tiny diamond of a novel from Dutch author Tommy Wieringa is such a masterpiece of compression it could stand as an object lesson for students of creative writing ... A deceptively simple, yet intricately layered, tale of complicity and exploitation.'
-Cameron Woodhead, The Age

'It has the grip of a nightmare that is all too plausible.'
-David Mills, The Sunday Times

Praise for Tommy Wieringa-
'The best contemporary novels are a quest made out of literary and moral ambition. Those who have successfully pursued this Holy Grail in recent times are Bolano with his The Savage Detectives, Sebald in Austerlitz, Coetzee with Disgrace and the late Philip Roth. From now on, to that august list must be added the name of Tommy Wieringa.'
-Le Figaro