"J'ai commencé dans la vie comme enfant trouvé par erreur. Volé avec la voiture, en fait. Une Ami 6 de race Citroën. Alors on m'a appelé Ami 6 en souvenir. Ce sont mes origines, quoi. Avec le temps, pour aller plus vite, c'est devenu Aziz. Mamita, qui est née rom en Roumanie où elle a été stérilisée par les nazis, dit toujours que c'était une mauvaise idée de m'abréger comme ça - d'après elle, les noms qu'on donne, ça déteint. Résultat, dans quelques heures, un attaché humanitaire va me reconduire dans le pays d'où je ne viens pas, mais qui figure sur mes faux papiers: le Maroc. Il est chargé de me réinsérer dans mes racines, comme il dit. Je n'aurais peut-être pas dû lui raconter que j'appartiens à la tribu des hommes gris d'Irghiz, réfugiés depuis la préhistoire dans une cité interdite du Haut Atlas. C'est fou le pouvoir d'une légende quand on décide d'y croire ..."

Sur le thème d'une amitié imprévisible, cocasse et poignante, entre un petit délinquant seul au monde et un jeune fonctionnaire idéaliste, Didier van Cauwelaert a écrit une comédie cruelle et tendre où il nous fait partager leurs malentendus, leurs illusions, leurs rêves impossibles et l'énergie de leurs espoirs. De la satire subversive à l'émotion sans fard, l'auteur de Poisson d'amour et d'Un objet en souffrance donne avec ce nouveau roman la plus brillante expression de son talent.

In anticipation of next months vacation, I looked for fiction about Marrakesh. This one just had a little about Morocco. Aziz is a young Marseillais, orphaned at birth and brought up by gypsies. Having never gained French citizenship, he is caught up in a plan to repatriate him to Morocco due to the nationality on the fake passport he does have. Strange and sad relationships with the official who accompanies him, and the guide they hire are more what the story is about. Bizarre and a little boring, though my colloquial French wasn't totally up to the challenge. ( October 18, 2005) ( )

Un Aller Simple is a slim novel(120 pages)that tracks a Marsaillais orphan of unknown origins, rescued and raised by a group of Roms after his parents are killed in a traffic accident. His new family gives him the name Aziz (after Ami 6, the model of auto from which he is rescued)and bequeath him with false identification papers that transform him into a non Arabic-speaking Moroccan immigrant. He makes a living stealing car radios and courts his childhood Rom sweetheart, Lila. His fondest memories (and the highpoint of his young life) are of the few years he spent in school, especially in the class of a M. Giraudy, who, when Aziz is forced to quit school, gives him an atlas called Legends of the World, which Aziz reads and rereads and which is the one possession that he regrets when, moments before his marriage to Lila, he is snatched by the police on a false charge of jewelry theft. Instead of jail, Aziz is deported to Morocco in the company of an attache named Jean-Pierre Schneider, himself a refugee of sorts from a family of displaced foundry workers in Lorraine, to be repatriated to and economically reinserted in his "home" country as a good-will gesture on the part of the French government. Aziz spins a tale for Jean-Pierre (and finds his true vocation as a storyteller)that sets them off on a quest for Irghiz and the Valley of the Grey Men in the Atlas mountains. Their guide is a young Moroccan-French woman named Valerie who is cynical and fatalistic about both love and life. Much (or not much really) ensues as this tragicomic fairytale brings Aziz finally to yet another adopted home, that of Jean Pierre's parents in a factory town in Lorraine. There Aziz moves into Jean Pierre's childhood room and into his childhood and sets about writing Jean Pierre's novel(titled Un Aller Simple) or the story of Aziz as written by Aziz as Jean Pierre's replacement. The first third of the novel which recounts Aziz's life in Marseille is arguably the most interesting. The subsequent adventure that begins in Morocco and ends in Lorraine is simply unconvincing, even when considered as a legend or fairy tale. ( )

Parfois assez amusant, avec des passages intéressants et une histoire bien livrée. ( )

Many new, interesting points of view. Liked it. ( )