Simon Mihailović, a doctor in Berlin, married to a journalist he met at a demonstration in 1968, returns to his hometown of Foča after a quarter of a century. It is late August 1991, and violence, fear, fanaticism, and nationalist madness poison the atmosphere. Shortly after his arrival, a former classmate, whom he loved, is brutally murdered: Zuhra Čengić, a member of an old Bosnian family. Three other people close to him are killed under mysterious circumstances. Suspicion falls on Simon, the stranger from the West. One evening, Enver Pilav, his long-lost best friend and a Sufi monk, appears at his door. Something is not right with him. In the days and nights they spend dreaming and discussing together, a transformation occurs: the deeper Simon delves into himself, the more he is able to open up to another world. Until he descends with Enver into the Barzakh, the underground intermediate realm where the souls of those murdered for centuries gather, to sever the great chain of violence.

Against the backdrop of recent history, Dzevad Karahasan tells the story of a man seeking to affirm his origins while confronting the impending war. The Night Council is a stirring novel in which crime narrative and theological speculation, love story and radical social critique are artfully woven together.