This is a list of the main and incidental characters that appear in book. The page numbers in parentheses indicate the first reference to each character in the 1998 Lynne Riener edition.

• Aami Mourad: former militant from the Algerian Communist Party, customer in Hassan's bakery, born in 1920s (p16)
• Aicha: 18 year-old woman in Boualem's building who goes to the movies with Kader, Boualem's younger brother (p24)
• Ali: teenage derelict from 2nd floor of Boualem's building (p6)
• Alilou: taxi driver who is a friend of Boualem (p78)
• Ammar: postman (p82)
• Boualem: main character of the story, young guy who lives at 13 Ramdane-Kahlouche St. and who stole the fundamentalists' loudspeaker (p1)
• Didine: effeminate red-haired man (p18)
• Hanifa: the older sister of Boualem and Kader; head of family since their parents died of tuberculosis (p10)
• Hassan: 50 yr-old owner of the bakery "Flower of Bab el-Oued" where Boualem works (p9)
• Imam Rabah: religious leader of Bab el-Oued (p1)
• Kader: Boualem's younger brother (p6)
• Karim: teenage derelict (p6)
• Lalla Jamila: mother of Saïd and Yamina (p13)
• Lamia: nurse and exotic dancer (p82)
• Lynda: rents romance novels to neighborhood women and has sexual relations with Aicha (p18)
• Mabrouk: 22 yr-old worker in bakery "Flower of Bab el-Oued" (p9)
• Madjer: the best known football player in Bab el-Oued (p15)
• Mess (Messaoud): Parisian-born Algerian trapped in Algiers for lack of a passport (pp24 & 29)
• Ouardya: 40ish single alcoholic woman (p25)
• Paulo Gasen: Frenchman who accompanies his pied noir aunt on a return visit to Algiers (p55)
• Rashid: fundamentalist who fought in the Afghan war (p24)
• Saïd: brother of Yamina and a fundamentalist who became a hero after getting jailed during the October 1988 riots (p13)
• Tahar: teenage derelict (p6)
• Yamina: Boualem's love interest, lives across the street (p4)

• 1954 Independence war began in Aures mountains
• 1956 (Sept): Soummam Congress united Algerian resistance to French
• 1957 (spring): Battle of Algiers
• 1958 (Jan): Saharan oil exports began
• 1958 (Feb. 8): French bombed civilians in Sakiet (Tunisia), producing international condemnation of France
• 1958 (Sept. 19): Provisional Government of the Algerian Revolution formed
• 1958 (Dec. 21): De Gaulle elected president of France's 5th Republic
• 1959 (Sept. 16): De Gaulle offered self-determination to Algeria
• 1960 (Jan. 14): French pied noirs (settlers) attacked French police in Algiers
• 1960 (June): Melun peace talks failed
• 1960 (Dec. 20): UN recognized Algerian right to self-determination
• 1961 (Jan. 25): OAS began assassination campaign
• 1961 (Apr. 10-16): French generals failed to overthrow De Gaulle
• 1961 (May-July): First Evian peace talks failed as OAS explodes bombs in Algiers
• 1962 (Mar. 7-18): Second Evian talks produced peace agreement and ceasefire between French and FLN (Front pour la Libéraiton Nationale)
• 1962 (June 17): OAS and FLN agree to truce; piednoir exodus began
• 1962 (July 1): Algerians voted for independence
• 1962 (Sept. 15): Ahmed Ben Bella became first president of Algeria
• 1965 Gillo Pontecorvo and Yacef produce the film "La Battagilia di Algeri" (The Battle of Algiers)
• 1965 (June 19): Houri Boumedienne led bloodless military coup and became the head of the government
• 1971 Limited redistribution of land to farmers
• 1975 French President Giscard-d'Estaing visited Algeria That same year, the Algerian government announced its support for the Saharan liberation movement (Polisario) against Morocco
• 1978 (Dec): Chadli Bendjedid assumed office as president
• 1979 (July 4): Ben Bella released from house arrest (and pardoned the following year)
• 1980 (Dec): FLN limits opposing candidates
• 1984 Chadli ran unopposed and was reelected president
• 1985 Widespread rioting in Algerian cities
• 1986 World oil prices drop 75% and Algerian external debt peaked
• 1988 (Oct): Riots and strikes in Algerian cities
• 1989 (Feb) Front Islamic du Salut (FIS) founded. Meanwhile, the government issued a new constitution that offered limited reforms
• 1990 (June): FIS won first municipal elections by a large margin
• 1991 Persian Gulf War increased tension between pro-Iraqi population and the government
• 1991 (May 23) FIS called general strike. In June, parliamentary elections were postponed by the government. Instead, martial law was imposed
• 1991 (Dec): FIS won the first round of parliamentary elections. A month later, the second round of parliamentary elections were cancelled, Chadli resigned and Mohamed Boudiaf became president
• 1992 (Feb. 29): State of emergency declared
• 1992 (July): Boudiaf assasinated and replaced by Ali Kafi
• 1994 (Jan): Liamine Zeroual became head of the government
• 1995 (Nov): FIS boycotted elections won by Zeroual
• 1996 (Dec. 7): Constitutional reforms banned political parties based on religion
• 1998: Mokhtar Belmokhtar, and Hassan Hattab, a leader of the Groupe Islamique Arm‚e (GIA), formed the the Salafist Group for Call and Combat (Groupe Salafiste pour la Predication et le Combat, or GSPC) after the GIA lost popular support following operations that killed many civilians.
• 1999 (Apr. 15): Abdelaziz Bouteflika elected president of Algeria despite charges of electoral fraud. He was the first non-general since Ahmed Ben Bella in 1965
• 1999 (Sept): Referendum passes on a peace plan that offered amnesty for most insurgents
• 2000 (Jan): Although about 1700 members of the FIS accepted anmesty in exchange for giving up their weapons, members of the Groupe Islamic Armée (GIA) continued to oppose the government
• 2001 (early): Renewed violence killed hundreds in rural Algeria
• 2001 (May): Pro-Berber demonstrations against the government resulted in several deaths after a Berber teenager died in police custody
• 2001 (Nov): Heavy rains caused mud slides that killed hundreds, including about 60 people in Bab el-Oued, and left thousands homeless
• 2002 (Feb. 9): The government announced that its forces killed Antar Zouabri, leader of the GIA and two others about 15 miles south of Algiers
• 2003 (Jan. 5): Insurgents attacked an army convoy and villages near the capital, killing 56
• 2003 (Mar. 2): Jacques Chirac made the first state visit to Algeria by a French president since 1975 and only the second since independence in 1962
• 2003 (May 21): A huge earthquake struck the region just east of Algiers, killing thousands and collapsing buildings. Apartment buildings in Bab el-Oued, Belcourt and the Casbah collapsed
• 2004 (April 8): Abdelaziz Bouteflika was reelected president of Algeria with 83 percent of the vote despite charges of electoral fraud. from his opponents, who included former prime minister Ali Benflis
• 2004 (June): The Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, a radical Muslim group with ties to al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility for an ambush that killed ten government sodliers and wounded sixeen in the mountainous Khabylie region east of Algiers. [A similar attack in August killed seven more government soldiers.]
• 2004 (Sep. 10): Government forces launched a militay offensive east of Aliers and killed five members of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat thought to have been involved in the August 2004 attack that killed seven government soldiers.
• 2004 (Oct. 5): France expelled Abdelkader Bouziane, an Algerian-born Islamic prayer leader, as part of a campaign to punish Muslim clerics preaching violence.
• 2005 (Aug. 18): In a deal mediated by the US, guerrillas from the Western Sahara freed 404 Moroccan soldiers -- some held for as many as twenty years -- from a prison camp in the Algerian Sahara Desert.
• 2005 (Sep. 29): Algerians voted overwhelmingly (80% turnout; 97% in favor) to approve the "Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation" which granted amnesty to radical Muslim guerrillas in exchange for their surrender. The vote also increased the power of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika,
• 2006 (Feb. 12): US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld met with Algerian government leaders to seek their cooperation against Islamic extremism and terrorism.
• 2006 (Mar. 4): The Algerian pardoned the first group of more than 2,000 Muslim guerrillas imprisoned since the 1990s, and freed them from prison.
• 2006 (Apr. 7): Unidentified gunmen attacked a convoy of government customs agents on patrol for gun smuggling in the southern Algerian Sahara Desert. Thirteen were killed and eight wounded.
• 2006 (Sep. 11): On the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the Salafist Group for Call and Combat announced a name change to Al-Qaeda in North Africa. Algerians continued to refer to it by its old name, however.
• 2006 (Oct. 30): Two police stations near Algiers were destroyed by truck bombs, killing three people and injuring 24.
• 2006 (Dec.): The Salafist Group for Call and Combat attacked a bus carrying foreign wprkers employed by Halliburton in Algeria, killing the driver and injuring nine others.
• 2007 (Feb. 13): The Salafist Group for Call and Combat detonated seven bombs in the Khabylie region of eastern Algeria, killing six and injuring nearly 30.
• 2007 (Mar. 3): The Salafist Group for Call and Combat attacked a bus carrying workers for a Russian company west of Algiers, killing a Russian engineer and three Algerians.
• 2007 (Mar. 22): An Algerian court sentenced Abdelmalek Dourkdel, head of the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, to death in absentia
• 2007 (Apr. 3): Three soldiers died in a skirmish with guerrillas near Biskra, southeast of Algiers.
• 2007 (Apr. 7): Nine soldiers and six guerrillas died in a gun battle about 150 miles west of Algiers near the town of Ben Allal.
• 2007 (Apr. 11): Two bombs exploded at the prime minister's office and a police station in Algiers, killing 30 and injuring more than two hundred people.