A palm plantation grove along a sand cone.
Five days out of seven, the simoom breath, transforms itself into storm and devastation all on its passage.
The principal activity of the inhabitants of the palm plantation thus consists in repairing the damage and remaking since always the same thousand-year-old gestures to free from sand, i.e. to survive.
The only person, who does not take part any more in this activity, is Abbas, the blind man. A kind of prophet keeping away from the community, he periodically recalls to the men the fate and the inanity of this fight against the elements. And the sand hand full which it launches as a challenge in the sky announces a new storm each time. Among the inhabitants, two brothers, Amara, the eldest, and M’ Hamed, the younger.
Amara’s wife gives birth to her eighth daughter and this birth will start the drama. The man does not support any more the curse that symbolizes in its eyes and the eyes of all, the arrival of this eighth young daughter. For him, eight small girls, beautiful and in good health, cannot make forget misfortune not to have not son.
A son, even crippled, like that of his brother and his sister-in-law, Roguia, has more value than all his eight daughters.
This new disappointment leaves it bitter and full with jealousy. After having beaten and having repudiated his wife, it will turn this jealousy against his sister-in-law, of which the beauty exerts on him a hatred interfered attraction.
The arrival of Hafnaoui, the troubadour, who moves palm plantation in palm plantation to exempt hope and poems, will enable him to concretize terrible and useless revenge.