One afternoon, Shaykh Abdelmajid Boularwah embarks upon a journey. He islooking for distant relatives: Boularwah's immediate family are ruthless, rich andcollaborate with colonial authorities. He hopes his long-lost relatives, who areunknown to the new communist government, might be better placed to help him defraudit. Through a labyrinth of back alleys and memories, he makes his way fromAlgiers across the seven bridges of Constantine, battling the forces of arapidly changing society alongside his own demons and traversing the difficultroad of colonialism to independence, tradition to modernity, hope to despairand from one failed ideology to another.Written in the early 1970s, The Earthquake offersa lucid vision of post-colonial Algeria -- a society in chaos, a world turnedupside down. Pioneering novelist Tahir Wattar both foretells the dreadfulevents which would later besiege his country and presciently demonstrates theevils of intolerance, ignorance, social classism and religious extremism inthis modern classic.