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François Beaune |
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«Ça va Aman? Je te fatigue pas trop, avec ma vie de Monsieur Tout le Monde? Tu reprends une bière?»
À Saint-Jean-des-Oies, une bourgade imaginaire de Vendée, c’est l’heure de l’apéritif chez Gérard Airaudeau. En veine de confidences, le voilà qui retrace son parcours d’ouvrier en milieu rural et d’autres histoires vécues par ses proches, voisins et collègues. Face à lui, Aman, un réfugié érythréen accueilli depuis peu, qui se demande, comme le lecteur, jusqu’où vont le mener ces digressions tragicomiques… et surtout quand vont arriver les autres convives de ce banquet organisé pour permettre à Marianne, la députée locale, de rencontrer enfin des «vrais gens».
We are in an imaginary town in the Vendée, a rural area, at the aperitif hour, in the working-class household of Gérard Airaudeau.
Facing him is Aman, an Eritrean refugee he took in a short while ago. Speaking quite openly to this silent interlocutor,
this evening Gérard is in the mood to confide, although
the guests invited to a supper with Marianne, a local MP, are expected soon.
He takes us back to his youth in the family hotel-restaurant “Le Fleuron”, and the sometimes eccentric manners of the clients, and then on to his first and eternal love for a fisherman’s daughter from the Ile d’Yeu. His voluble narrative covers all the stages of a life of labor, from his apprenticeship as a butcher to his imminent retirement, including stints at the slaughterhouse, in
metallurgy and as a temporary salesperson, and his search for work.
A gorgeous monologue full of incredible stories wrote as a long and epic travel in the heart of a non-ordinary man.
“A stupendous picture of France, from the sixties to nowadays.”Libération
“A very colourful, Rabelaisian, lively, funny and sensitive voice. We listen and hear again, that voice which delights you as much as it moves you.”
Télérama |
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