The memoirs of Sadek Hadjeres have long been awaited, not only for what they reveal about his life and the history of Algeria, but also for the ability of the author, one of the authors of the nationalist movement’s. Born in 1928, in the Kabylie, Hadjeres attended medical school at the University of Algiers in the late 1940s. In 1944 he joined the Algerian People’s Party and was elected in 1948 as head of the university branch of the Movement for the Victory of Democratic Freedoms, which was the legal cover for the People’s Party. He left the party in 1949, during what was then known as the Berber Crisis. In 1951, he was elected president of the Muslim Student Association of North Africa before changing allegiances in the very same year and joining the ranks of the Algerian Communist Party, eventually becoming a member of the central committee. During the War of Liberation, the political bureau in the party put him in charge of organizing and coordinating the Algerian Fighters for Liberation movement. After independence, Hadjeres remained a leftist and remained in the political opposition within his new party, the Socialist Vanguard Party. Hadjeres’ memoire, especially the first part depicting the 1940s, portray a period that represented an awakening for Algerians, one that got them involved in social and political work toward self-determination.