Nadia, now a young woman, looks back on her childhood from an uncertain present. Short, succinct chapters slowly draw us into her world: from the ordinary day to day of quiet hours spent cooking with her grandmother, to the men she has loved, and lost, to her complicated relationship with her absent father, and to her cautious participation in the Egyptian 'revolution.' Against this backdrop of both intensely personal and profoundly public life, we get to know Nadia over three decades. Stunning in its simplicity, Cigarette Number Seven is a deeply intimate novel about family and relationships in turbulent times.