- International Booker Prize 2023 · Shortlist · for the translation by Frank Wynne
Standing Heavy
Debout-payé
GauZ' (born 1971)
Translated by Frank Wynne
English editions
In EnglishStanding Heavy
Biblioasis · Canada · 3 October 2023 · Paperback · 176 pages
Standing Heavy
MacLehose Press · United Kingdom · 26 May 2022 · Paperback · 167 pages
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An Ivorian student, Ossiri, reaches Paris without papers in 1990 and becomes a security guard. The novel tracks how that job changes from the days of Françafrique to the post-9/11 years, pays tribute to his mother, his kin and an African community with its faults and troubles, and gathers what a guard notices in stores such as Camaïeu at Bastille and Sephora on the Champs-Élysées.
AI-generated summary
About the book
- Form
- Novel
- Length
- 172 pages in the original
- Genres
- Migration, Satire (assigned by AI)
- Set in
- France
- First published
- 2014 by Le Nouvel Attila
- Author's age
- 43 when first published
- ISBN
9782371000049 (original)
9781529414431 (MacLehose Press, United Kingdom)
9781771966009 (Biblioasis, Canada)