The story of Maryam, the National Ballet dancer, in a society that is quietly and reassuringly creeping towards total collapse, a society that is hostile to life, longing, joy, and everything beautiful, especially when this love comes from a woman who has mortgaged her entire life to her art. Maryam is determined, despite all the impossibilities, to live her artistic life deeply, as she wants it and not as she is told on a daily basis. She chooses to perform Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade Symphony. But will the bullet that lodged in her brain during the events of October 1988 help her? Will the newcomers allow it: the militias of the Guardians of Intent, who built their darkness on the failures of the old guard? Who can stop a heart full of light to the point of annihilation, and block the path of Mary, the mistress of affairs and astonishment, the apple of the mad and the language of those dazzled by life, and prevent her from performing the dance of death with pride and sublimity, as the masters of status do within dread and suffering?

واسيني الأعرج روائيّ جزائريّ صدرتْ له عن دار الآداب روايات «شرفات بحر الشمال»، «أشباح القدس»، «كتاب الأمير»، «طوق الياسمين»، «أنثى السراب»، «أصابع لوليتا»، «مملكة الفراشة»، «سيرة المنتهى»، «حكاية العربي الأخير»، «نساء كازانوفا»، «مي، ليالي إيزيس»، «سيِّدة المقام»، «أسرار البيت الأندلسي».
نال جوائز أدبيَّة عديدة، وتُرجمت أعماله إلى الكثير من اللغات.
يتنازل الكاتب عن كلِّ حقوقه الماديَّة للأطفال المرضى بالسرطان.