This is one of the best-written Arabic novels I have ever read. It illustrates the intellectual, political and socio-cultural dynamics of the Arab world by focusing on a group of Bahraini students coming to study in Cairo in the late 1950s. Drifting into seperate intellectual and political directions, each in tune with or in opposition to his socio-cultural or economic background, the five students share an apartment intended for "freedom" (i.e. girls, alcohol, etc.).

Al-Qusaibi managed to tell the story of a generation and an age crucial in the history of the Arab people through his representation of the seemingly familiar lives of young Arab men in a "foreign" context searching for a "freedom." ( )