Woerdense Courant, May 27th, 2015
“Whoever thinks of the events in Syria in the recent years sees  horror images speed by. In this novel, it becomes very personal. The unnamed narrator brings the reader close to the worries of his family in Aleppo, while the political situation barely lurks in the background (…). Sometimes chaotic, [the novel is] always incisive.”

Der Standaard, March 27 2015
“Khalifa’s family chronicle is straightforward and very structured. We never have enough of the recent history it covers, and the sometimes bizarre characters that filled the ancient streets of the Syrian city [of Aleppo].”

A review by Margot Djikgraaf, for NRC Handelsblad, April 22, 2015
“Characters are staged at a breakneck pace, disappear and reappear, while previously described events come along again, as if in a spiral that will make the reader lose grip of the story, and feeling the ground fall from under her feet. This is exactly Khalifa’s purpose. This is the life of Aleppo’s residents”

This piece is by Alexis Brocas, for the Magazine littéraire, published in September 2015.
Translated excerpts below.
Since Tchen’sattacks  in The Human Condition, terrorism seems a constant theme in contemporary literature — a mirror that we walk along a path bordered by the collective history and the author’s personal history. Three novels came out this autumn, written in various languages, but dealing with this issue using converging narratives.
In The French, Julien Suaudeau recounts the trajectory of a young, clueless, anonymous, young man from Evreux to to the caliphate of Daech — and from petty crime to slaughter. For …