One-Way

One-Way (Un aller simple in French) is a 1994 novel by the French writer Didier van Cauwelaert, for which he received the Prix Goncourt. Aziz is a child survivor of a road accident, taken in by Romanian Roma and living on the outskirts of Marseille, where he steals car stereo equipment. His only papers, forged and the cheapest to obtain, belong to a Moroccan woman. After being reported by a fence, he is arrested and drawn into a large publicity operation: a cultural attaché, Schneider, will accompany him to his supposed country of origin and help him reintegrate into a place he has never been and whose language he does not speak.

Schneider, a man from Lorraine living in Paris and going through a separation, and Aziz set out on an almost mythical journey, since Aziz leads Schneider to believe he comes from a village hidden in the mountains, a kind of echo of earthly paradise born from his imagination. Valérie, a French guide weary of tacky tourists, accompanies them on the way toward an unknown place. Van Cauwelaert blends dramatic and humorous tones and treats recurring themes in his work, such as estrangement, the inability to understand the other, and the unease caused by the absence of a father figure. In 2001 Laurent Heynemann directed a film adaptation of the novel.