One-Way

One-Way is a novel by French writer Didier Van Cauwelaert, published in 1994. The novel employs an absurdist comic tone to explore the implications of restrictive immigration laws passed in France the year before.

The novel begins with Aziz recounting how he was adopted by a family of Gypsies when he was very young and sleeping in the back seat of a car they stole. They name him after the car, an Ami 6, which becomes Aziz. Whenever he misbehaves, Mamita tells him that the tow truck is coming to take him away, and he has nightmares about being taken to the pound in the car and crushed. When he began stealing radios in order to survive, he received false identity papers that made him an Arab and gave him the last name Kemal. When Aziz turns 18 he is told the truth: Old Vasile crashed into his parents’ car in an accident, killing them, and pulled Aziz from the wreckage.

Aziz’s false passport makes him Moroccan, and lists a fictitious village called Irghiz as his place of birth. The Roma caravan he lives with in north Marseilles in France is offered a permanent home by the local council, which they choose to accept so that they may steal all the furniture and fixtures; they certainly do not wish to live there. Aziz enjoys school and does well there, but he is pressured to start earning his keep by his adoptive family, and thus begins stealing car radios. Aziz is very aware of being a gadjo, a non-Gypsy; this means he does not have the full rights and respect accorded to a member of the community. Before learning the truth, he used to fantasize about locating his parents, but he always chose not to because he figured having found a toe-hold in one family was better than risking failing to get along with another.



Aziz meets a Gypsy girl named Lila and falls in love with her, but he has competition in a boy named Radjo. Since Radjo is a full Gypsy, he will be given preference. Aziz and Lila have a sexual relationship, although he ‛honors’ her virginity by only having anal sex with her. Radjo and Lila also sleep together, although Radjo does not honor her and has vaginal intercourse with her. They become engaged to be married and Aziz is miserable about it, but just before the wedding is scheduled, Radjo is murdered. Without competition, Aziz and Lila are now free to be married.

Aziz purchases an engagement ring with his hard-won savings, but he does not keep a receipt. He is accused of stealing the ring and is arrested for the crime, and since he does not have a receipt he cannot prove he bought it, and no one believes an Arab boy living with Gypsies might not steal a ring. Aziz has not bothered to renew his falsified resident papers, and so he is now an illegal immigrant on top of everything else.

A man named Jean-Pierre Schneider arrives. He is a government official whose job it is to repatriate immigrants like Aziz. Schneider has come to take Aziz back to his home town in Morocco, though he finds it challenging since he cannot locate the village listed on Aziz’s papers, because the village is made up. This does not slow Schneider down, however; he is determined to bring Aziz home and help him find a job. Aziz and Schneider fly to Morocco and Aziz teases Schneider with fantastic tales of his wonderful, charming home village of Irghiz. Schneider reveals in diary entries that he is thoroughly taken in by Aziz’s lies and becomes charmed by the idea of Irghiz and wants to write a book about the whole adventure. Part of Schneider’s motivation is his upcoming divorce; his wife thinks little of him and his small career, and he thinks if he writes a celebrated book he will save his marriage.



Aziz encounters a woman named Valérie who is being accosted by several tourists; he saves her from them and they have unspectacular sex. Valérie is disinterested in Aziz but he falls in love, and he asks her to help him continue the charade with Schneider, which she is happy to do. Aziz and Valérie lead Schneider on a long hike into the mountains supposedly to go to Irghiz, and Schneider, believing Valérie to be interested in him sexually, agrees. However, he is in poor shape and dies along the way.

Aziz must now accompany Schneider’s body back to France. Schneider’s wife has remarried, however, and so Aziz must spend the last of the money given to him by the government to transport the body to Schneider’s family home. Schneider’s family had disowned him, Aziz discovers, and will not be interested in his dead body. When Aziz learns that the van he hired to transport the body has been stolen, he calls the authorities and tells them that Schneider has been kidnapped by terrorists. Schneider’s family welcomes Aziz into their home and begins working on the book Schneider wished to write from the man’s notes.