Escaping from the village where he was born, from an area plagued by poverty, hunger, and epidemics, young Ilias arrives in a small seaside town where he is astonished to watch the parade of the Security Forces in German East Africa.

Years later, in 1914, as the great war between the British and the Germans looms, in Tanga, Tanzania, Ilias decides to enlist in the German army, which consists mainly of African mercenaries, promising his little sister that he will return soon. His promise will never be fulfilled and the mystery of what happened to Ilias will overshadow Afia's life until she meets Hamza, a generous and dreamy deserter who managed to escape the horrors of war. The two of them will live an unexpected love story that will unite two families and two continents, Africa and Europe. 

Combining historical elements in an emotional fiction, Abdulrazak Gurnah offers us a great literary work about Africa, the legacy of colonialism, the atrocities of war, as well as the immeasurable contradictions of human nature.