Le Gone du Chaâba by Azouz Begag

I picked this one up because I rather like the little boy on the front, and also because someone told me it was her favourite book.

It’s the semi-autobiographical story of Azouz Begag who was the son of Algerian immigrants living in a shanty town, the Chaâba, near Lyon. Set in the sixties, it’s fairly horrifying to read of the conditions they lived in but it’s a fascinating insight into immigrant life and culture. No electricity, a single source of water, very questionable sanitation. The highlight of the week was the arrival of the dustbin lorry – when it emptied its contents there was an opportunity to find treasure.

Azouz worked hard at primary school and succeeded in rising to the top of the class but it brought him into conflict with his friends from the Chaâba. They were all at the bottom and accused him of betraying them by working so hard and becoming French. When he went on to the “big school”, he pretended to be Jewish in an attempt to fit in.

In the meantime his parents had moved, like all the other immigrant families around them, into a flat in town. The book ends with another move imminent, clearly signalling a sequel, which I’d like to find.

It’s written with quite a sense of humour. The French was not too difficult but some of the words were distortions of French used by the immigrants such as l’bomba for la pompe, and tababrisi for tabac à priser, and interspersed with a little Arabic. That did complicate things for a while until I got used to it. Still, it’s worth a read, and at 240 pages it’s fairly rapid.