by Gauz
First published 2022
Ferdinand steps off the plane in 1960s Paris with big dreams and empty pockets. He came from Côte d'Ivoire to make something of himself in France. Decades later, Ossiri and Kassoum follow the same path during the 1990s immigration boom, finding work as security guards at a flour mill. By the 2010s, one of them stands watch in a Champs-Élysées Sephora, observing shoppers worship at the altar of luxury goods. Babies smile at him because he never drags them to sales racks. Adults ignore him as they hunt for products they cannot afford. Between shifts, the men navigate French immigration policies that shift like sand and bicker with fellow Ivoirians at their student residence. They work without papers, invisible to customers but seeing everything. Gauz traces how colonial ties bind former subjects to their colonizers in new ways. The security guards become witnesses to French consumer culture while remaining outsiders to French society. Their watchful eyes capture the absurdity of capitalism and the weight of displacement.
Genres: fiction, african-literature, contemporary, 21st-century
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, outsiders
Setting: Cote d'Ivoire, Paris, France, Champs-Élysées, Sephora
Period: 1960s, 1990s, 2010s
168 pages · Paperback · MacLehose Press
Content warnings: colonialism