Bar Balto [Paperback]

"A marvellous kaleidoscope" --The Guardian, Laura Wilson, January 7, 2011

`Guene is praised as a multicultural heroine. And to her credit, she turns stereotypes on their heads; the people of Making-Ends-Meet are an authentic community, whose humanity endears them to us, however gritty or kitsch their veneer --TLS

`She writes with intelligence and sympathy, with humour and with understanding'
--The Scotsman

`This is a vituosic work of literary ventriloquism, each voice brilliantly paced, heavily idiomatic and utterly distinctive' --The Independent

`The book is well drawn and very French, yet sounds so urgently British/London, it's charming and quick to read and allows an insight into the txt-ridden, low motivation, high octane lives of kids today, distractions, influences and warts, and all' --Booktrust

The third novel from the young French Algerian star, whose first two novels - Just Like Tomorrow and Dreamz from the Endz have been published to great acclaim in many countries.

Bar Balto is a whodunit set in a dead end town near Paris. Joël, AKA 'The Rink' because of his bald pate, the very unpopular owner of the only bar in town, has been murdered.When he is found dead in his flat, naked, covered with multiple stab wounds and surrounded by rivers of blood, it's not so much a question of who killed him but who didn't kill him, and it seems that most of his customers have strong motives. In a series of talking heads, they tell us their stories in their own, very different voices (from Magalie, the teenaged girl obsessed with Paris Hilton who talks in mobile phone speak, to a local mother whose only escape in life is her regular visits to the bar where she has to endure Joel's lecherous gaze).As the tension mounts and we're still none the wiser, the ending - in the form of Joël's final confession - is as shocking and tragic as it is unexpected.

This novel is many things: a gripping whodunit, a shaggy dog story, a series of hilarious monologues and an insight into the human stories that lie behind banal, blind, unthinking, everyday racism. Handled with her hallmark provocative wit and delightful levity, this is a departure from Faïza's first two hugely successful novels which shows her flexing her literary muscles and extending her range as a writer of supreme talent. But, in her own words, this novel is a continuation of her ongoing theme of 'the invisible people in society'. Darkly disturbing, staggeringly impressive, Bar Balto is also a blast - showing off Guène's brilliance as a ventriloquist and her growing skill as a storyteller and social observer who can not be ignored.

Faiza Guene was born in France in 1985 to Algerian parents. She wrote her first novel, Just Like Tomorrow, when she was 17 years old. It was a huge success in France, selling over 360,000 copies and translation rights around the world, and was shortlisted for the Young Minds Book Award 2006 and longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2007. Her second book was Dreams from the Endz.