Translator's Introduction:

On the outskirts of Casablanca, next to a vast, sprawling dump, lies the shantytown of Sidi Moumen, where Yachine and his friends grow up amid the chaos of drugs, violence, and despair. The barefoot boys start their own soccer team - the Stars of Sidi Moumen - and play among the detritus and buried skeletons of the dump.

Yachine's beloved older brother Hamid begins to attend religious meetings with Sheikh Abou Zoubeir, who beguiles the Stars of Sidi Moumen into believing that there is a better world in the afterlife, where their faith in Allah will be rewarded.

Based on the Casablanca bombings of 2003, this is Mahi Binebine's powerful evocation of the life and death of a suicide bomber (...)

[Read Lulu Norman's introduction and translation on Warscapes Magazine]