Le Gone Du Chaaba

1246 Words5 Pages
‘Le Gone du Chaâba is a story about integration and assimilation.’ Azouz Begag’s Le Gone du Chaâba is his best-selling autobiographical novel retells his childhood in the shantytowns of France. The story covers approximately three years, seen through the eyes of the protagonist, encountering his issues with dealing with the clash of two cultures he has been forced to life with, France and Algeria, and trying to find a place within it. Begag skilfully illustrates the difficulty of the two cultures getting shoved together though some of the language he uses throughout the novel. Some of the words were distortions of French used by the immigrants such as l’bomba for la pompe (pump), and tababrisi for tabac à priser (Snuff), and interspersed with a little Arabic, which makes it incredibly more difficult for the non-French readers to understand but this use of Lyonnais-Maghreb blend gives the reader an idea of what it must be like to actually live with two cultures rather than merely read it. Le Gone du Chaâba deals with many issues, including integration and assimilation but also identity, social diversity and discrimination throughout the novel. Begag’s story centres around the young boy Azouz, and the other children who live in the Chaâba. Although the families moved to France to escape poverty and make a better life, if you looked at the Chaâba you would think they were living in an underdeveloped country, the slum is made up of a mixture of corrugated metal, wooden panels and salvaged bricks. A mess that eventually leads to the Chaâba being torn down due to it violating multiple zoning laws and having no real means of sanitation. But even though the Chaaba is especially run down and not at all fit for living in, here, Azouz’s parents have a lot more than when they lived in Algeria, though essentially the Chaâba is like they have lifted their town in Algeria and
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