Just outside of the Malian city of Timbuktu, now occupied by militant Islamic rebels who impose the Sharia on civilians and inconvenience their daily life, a cattleman kills a fisherman.

Aya, a young Ivorian woman in her early thirties, says no on her wedding day, to everyone’s astonishment. After emigrating to Asia, she works in a tea export shop with Cai, a 45-year-old Chinese ...