The novel centres around Mukhtar, whose father, Omar Efendi, was in the Royal Police Force, and his mother, Rahma, was from a Turco-Libyan family; Mukhtar stands frozen for ten years like a statue in the middle of public park in Libyan capital Tripoli after he was abandoned by his lover, the young and promiscuous Fatma. While the country is gripped with a chewing gum craze, different Libyan professors that just came from their studies abroad try to rediscover the country and suggest different theories to explain a society gripped with chewing gum and consumerism.
