Like a daring trapeze artist, Munir Hachemi also enjoys pushing the boundaries of his writing, constantly refining his craft and offering his readers a joyful and stimulating challenge. This collection of short stories opens with a tale of a young woman trying to survive in a world where "people have disappeared." Hachemi also follows a couple tirelessly searching for the Sound of the End. He observes the monotonous wait of someone enduring a strict quarantine in a luxurious hotel somewhere in Asia, and their interactions with others. He follows the investigations of a police officer who, after discovering literature just before retirement, begins to apply a different logic to his work. He recounts an apocryphal version of One Thousand and One Nights translated by Borges, which contains only the story of an ancient empire whose power rests on its immense library. Even so, the most otherworldly text in the entire collection is based on the true story of a former worker at a CIE (Foreigners' Detention Center), in which he simply recounts what he witnessed.

With touches of political allegory, visionary insights, and fantastical and speculative twists that never lose sight of the pure pleasure of literary play, Hachemi once again demonstrates in What's Missing an extraordinary narrative intelligence that will surprise anyone who ventures into his solitary, sometimes stark, corporeal, and enigmatic realities.