Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow

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We tell ourselves; they went through all that, and we are still treated the same way. The question now is how to deal with the anger' The title of this book, Kiffe kiffe demain, must give translators nightmares. The problem is that it’s a play on words, and not just on any normal words, but ghetto slang. “ Kif kif” is vernacular roughly meaning “same ‘ole, same ‘ole”; “ kiffer” is vernacular meaning “to like/love”. The title has a bittersweet tang derived from the opposing feelings of despair (“same ‘ole shit tomorrow”) and hope (“loving tomorrow”). That title must also give those tight-arsed asshats at the French Academy nightmares. “But zis is ghetto Frrench! Quelle horreur!”

Guène, herself the child of Algerian immigrants, also grew up in the projects just outside Paris, lending Doria's experiences the ring of gritty truth. You don't have to know much about French history or culture, because Guène explains it all for you beautifully, but if you do know from the Algerian war and the current racism in the banlieues, there's an added layer here to savor.The author wrote this when she was 19 years old and it definitely has a YA simplicity and feel to it. I saw some comparisons to The Catcher in the Rye but I think it may more closely align with S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders, both from the standpoint of a young author and for characters who are existing on the margins of society. Guillaume Allary, one of Guène’s editors at the time, who has since founded his own publishing company on Paris’ Right Bank, recalled that in 2004 “there were no voices coming from the banlieues [suburbs]…The book arrived in that heavy silence in a very white, very inward-looking, Parisian literary milieu that was ignorant about a large part of the French population. Après tout, « le voyage au bout de la nuit » (aucune comparaison possible) n'était pas non plus de la littérature classique. Mais il faut parler aujourd'hui des oeuvres qui marquent leur temps. Il y a bien sûr dans les surprises agréables, des éléments de réticences… (Sinon, on serait dans l'angélisme total, et ce n'est pas le lieu !).

But this isn’t an angry book. It’s a slice of the life of a fifteen year old girl who doen’t stop for too long to think about hows and whys. She just gets on with things.It became a very symbolic event, which co-opted the family’s sorrow and grief. We wanted to describe the reality of what they went through. That also allowed us to describe what it meant to be an Arab in France in the 80s, the reality of racism and the violence of French-style assimilation. The children believed in “the republican promise” and really tried to integrate as much as they could, then this tragedy made them realise that they were still regarded first and foremost as Arabs. I loved watching her interact with a broad cast. Mrs Burland, a counsellor who clearly cares but doesn’t quite understand. Hamoudi, her closest friend, Their lives are moving in different directions, but the bond between them remains. Shopkeepers, neighbours, aunties … Kiffe Kiffe Demain became so significant you might even say there is a 'before Kiffe Kiffe' and an 'after Kiffe Kiffe' on France’s literary landscape

Later when my breasts are bigger and I’m a little bit more intelligent, like when I’m adult, I’ll join up with a group that helps people... Guène finds the images from these matches, 20 years apart, enlightening. Ladj Ly’s scene on the Champs Elysees “means so much more than just the match; [it] represents an ideal of what the spirit of unity should be,” she says. The novel itself is a coming-of-age story about a 15-year-old girl named Doria who lives with her Moroccan mother in a council estate in the Paris suburbs. Guène’s eagle eye for observation comes through in Doria’s self-deprecating commentary as she describes her daily life and her mother’s slow path to empowerment after being deserted by her husband who left her for a younger woman in hopes she'd bear him a son. Crossing the divide Doria, she gravitates toward thinking of her life in terms of movies, those thoughts are quite funny. Faïza Guène est réalisatrice de plusieurs courts-métrages. Parmi ceux-ci, on notera : "La Zonzonnière" en 1999, "RTT et Rumeurs" en 2002 et "Rien que des mots" en 2004.Extrait : « Je suis allée dans la cuisine pour nettoyer la gazinière parce que c'état dégueu, avant que l'assistante sociale fasse son inspection ». In the beginning, I was inspired by my life, by the stories I heard. I read a great deal, but without “sanctifying” literature. We are the inheritors of an oral culture handed down from generation to generation. There was a storytelling tradition even if there were no books. A bit later, I discovered JD Salinger, who used a very lively style to write about adolescence, then John Fante and more recently James Baldwin.