In Case We Come Back One Day

A moving journey through the lights and shadows of colonial Algeria.
Oran. The 1920s, 20th century.
In this African city of Arab origin, Spanish pulse and French administration, a young woman with the false name of Cecilia Canal disembarks. She appears to cross the Mediterranean Sea escaping from misery, like so many of her compatriots. Her reason, however, is more heartbreaking.

The urgency to survive forces her to work her fingers to the bone on plantations and laundries, as a domestic worker and a piece-rate factory worker. Until one early morning, in the Bastos tobacco factory, she takes part in a crime for which she pays with her submission to a despicable man. Her fortitude will be what frees her and gives her the courage to rebuild herself and embark on an upward path through three vibrant decades.

This is the story of a woman who lived through the colonial boom and the controversial end of French Algeria. And, in parallel, its pages rescue the memory of the unknown Spanish pieds-noirs who, dragged by emigration and exile, were part of that world.