Traces the story of Jacques Cormery, a young man who rises above the losses and misfortunes of his childhood in Algeria.

In the small coastal city of Iran, Algeria, rats begin rising from the filth only to die as bloody heaps in the streets. And just as mysteriously as it appeared, the rodent problem seems to vanish. Shortly after, however, many local residents experience intense fevers and then perish--victims of the unseen menace of the bubonic plague. And as life in the town comes to a halt, the survivors attempt to come to terms with their own mortality and the...

"Our Riches celebrates quixotic devotion and the love of books in the person of Edmond Charlot, who at the age of twenty founded Les Vraies Richesses (Our True Wealth), the famous Algerian bookstore/publishing house/lending library. He more than fulfilled its motto 'by the young, for the young', discovering the twenty-four-year-old Albert Camus in 1937. His entire archive was twice destroyed by the French colonial forces, but despite financial difficulties...