| Synopsis: |
Hailed as a marvel and awarded France's most prestigious literary prize, One-Way recounts the comic, absurd; and all-too-believable adventures of Aziz Kemal, a young Frenchman raised as an Arab by Marseilles gypsies. Arrested for a crime he didn't commit, Aziz becomes the target of a government campaign to repatriate illegal immigrants and finds himself on route to Morocco, despite the fact that he isn't Moroccan. Accompanying Aziz is a touchingly naive and neurotic "humanitarian attache" named Jean-Pierre Schneider, who drowns his own personal woes in his zeal to build a new life for his charge in a land neither one has ever seen. It is on the plane to Morocco that events take an unexpected turn, when Aziz, pressed for details of a "birthplace" that isn't his, invents the fabulous story of Irghiz, a valley-paradise hidden from the world and now in danger of ruin. From this moment on, the attache forgets his original assignment and has only one mission: to return Aziz to the Eldorodo he left behind and save it from the ravages of modern progress. So begins an initiatory journey that takes Aziz, Jean-Pierre, and a disabused aristocrat named Volerie d'Armeroy de Villeneuve across a desert both real and mythic, pursuing a vision of happiness as elusive as lrghiz itself. At once humorous and poignant, the story of this journey is, a beautifully realized blend of sensitivity, humor, intelligence, and good sense...a rich and engaging novel, filled with a lucid and compassion ate humanity" (Jean-Claude Lebrun). |