My Dwelling Was the Horizon - Gabriel Féral

An adventure story, and also a love story between a Frenchman and Mauritania. A young colonial administrator, Gabriel Féral arrives in Mauritania in 1942 to take up a profession he chose long ago but knows virtually nothing about. There, far from everything, forgotten in a world at war, men die of hunger with dignity. Between them and him, there is immediately trust, even more—respect... Practically alone, with a handful of African officials, collaborators and friends, he will have to become a man of all trades in this stretch of barren Sahel, dispensing justice and maintaining peace...