[2] First published in the United States, the connected stories explore the extensive immigration from North Africa to Europe through the lives of four Moroccan characters: two men and two women.

A group of young Moroccan immigrants seeking a better life in Spain cross the Strait of Gibraltar on a lifeboat.

"[6] Publishers Weekly described it as "Less a novel than a set of finely detailed portraits, this book gives outsiders a glimpse of some of Moroccan society's strata and the desperation that underlies many ordinary lives.

"[2] In a 2014 essay, critic Lisa Marchi said the book is "wisely constructed: the writer confidently travels between temporal settings and geographical zones to gradually unveil the genealogy of each character’s migratory project".

[3] Lisa Marchi says that the collection of stories "highlights the economic precarity, social invisibility, and indisputable vulnerability of the migrants".