Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow (2006)

The 20-year-old author of this feisty, invigorating debut (the title, Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow is a twist on the Arabic for ''same-old, same-old'') is barely older than her 15-year-old heroine. And like the fictional Doria (the daughter of Moroccan immigrants who lives with her mother in a raw housing project on the outskirts of Paris negotiating the jagged cracks between French and Arab life), Faïza Guène is the daughter of Algerian immigrants and a child of the projects herself. Her access to authenticity is matched by a great eye and ear for the funny, infuriating, and hopeful about young womanhood and cultural welter.