The Life Before Us

Momo has lived at Madame Rosa's Paris boarding house ever since he can remember, one of an ever-changing band of prostitutes' children. But when money becomes tight, and Madame Rosa gets too ill to climb the six flights of stairs to their apartment, he determines to support her any way he can. Along the way, he finds community in a host of eccentric characters in the slums of Belleville - from Madame Lola, a Senegalese trans woman who watches out for Momo and the other children, to Monsieur Hamil, an Algerian carpet seller with a passion for Victor Hugo. A work of streetwise humour and tender devotion, The Life Before Us was published under the pseudonym Emile Ajar and went on to win the Prix Goncourt.

Émile Ajar was the nom de plume of Romain Gary, one of the most important French writers of the 20th century. He was married to the American actress Jean Seberg and served in the RAF during WW2. He won the once-in-a-lifetime honour the Prix Goncourt twice, the only person ever to have done so - once as Gary and once as Ajar, for the novel The Life Before Us. Gary died in Paris in 1980 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, leaving behind a note revealing Ajar's true identity.