The Life Before Us (1975; French: La vie devant soi) is a novel by French author Romain Gary who wrote it under the pseudonym of "Emile Ajar". It was originally published in English as Momo translated by Ralph Manheim, then re-published in 1986 as The Life Before Us. It won the Prix Goncourt in 1975.
Momo, a Muslim orphan boy who is about 10 years old, lives under the care of an old Jewish woman named Madame Rosa, who was a prisoner at Auschwitz and later became a prostitute in Paris. Momo's mother abandoned him with Madame Rosa, who is essentially a babysitter for the children of prostitutes. They live on the seventh floor of an apartment building in Belleville, a district of Paris. In their apartment building, Madame Rosa made a small hideout in a cellar, where she keeps artifacts of her Jewish heritage. The young boy tells the story of his life in the orphanage and of his relationship with Madame Rosa as she becomes increasingly sick, culminating with her death, after she had expressed her desire to not die in hospital on life support, saying that she does not want to be a vegetable being forced to live.
The book deals with several themes, including euthanasia, prostitution, the effects of the Holocaust, immigration and aging.
The novel was adapted for cinema by Israeli director Moshé Mizrahi as Madame Rosa in 1977. The film won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and Simone Signoret won the César Award for Best Actress for her performance as Madame Rosa. The novel was adapted for television in 2010 by Myriam Boyer, who also plays Madame Rosa. In 1987, American director Harold Prince staged a short-lived musical version on Broadway under the title Roza with a libretto and lyrics by Julian More and music by Gilbert Becaud.
On November 13, 2020, Netflix released The Life Ahead directed by Edoardo Ponti and starring Sophia Loren. [1]
The novel was first published in Iran in 1975 before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. It was banned for around 10 years after the revolution. Then the ban was removed and it was published several times afterwards. However, "The Life Before Us" was banned again during the tenure of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The book finally hit the shelves in Iran again after a 13-year ban in September 2018. “With the publication of this book, I feel like a loved one has been released from prison and now I have come to visit him,” said Lili Golestan, the translator of the book into Persian, after the ban was lifted. [2]
The book has a major part in the South Korean crime television series Nobody Knows from 2020. As the TV series progresses, parts of the book are cited, and additionally, one of the victims of the crime series left a clue in the book to the protagonist.
Sofia Costanza Brigida Villani Scicolone, known professionally as Sophia Loren, is an Italian actress. She was named by the American Film Institute as one of the greatest stars of Classical Hollywood cinema and as of 2023, is one of the last surviving major stars from the era. Loren is also the only remaining living person to appear on AFI's list of the 50 greatest stars of American film history, positioned 21st.
The Prix Goncourt is a prize in French literature, given by the académie Goncourt to the author of "the best and most imaginative prose work of the year". The prize carries a symbolic reward of only 10 euros, but results in considerable recognition and book sales for the winning author. Four other prizes are also awarded: prix Goncourt du Premier Roman, prix Goncourt de la Nouvelle, prix Goncourt de la Poésie (poetry) and prix Goncourt de la Biographie (biography). Of the "big six" French literary awards, the Prix Goncourt is the best known and most prestigious. The other major literary prizes include the Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française, the Prix Femina, the Prix Renaudot, the Prix Interallié and the Prix Médicis.
Romain Gary, born Roman Kacew, was a French novelist, diplomat, film director, and World War II aviator. He is the only author to have won the Prix Goncourt under two names. He is considered a major writer of French literature of the second half of the 20th century. He was married to Lesley Blanch, then Jean Seberg.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1975.
Momo may refer to:
Lesley Blanch, MBE, FRSL was a British writer, historian and traveller. She is best known for The Wilder Shores of Love, about Isabel Burton, Jane Digby el-Mezrab, Aimée du Buc de Rivéry, and Isabelle Eberhardt.
Belleville is a neighbourhood of Paris, France, parts of which lie in four different arrondissements. The major portion of Belleville straddles the borderline between the 20th arrondissement and the 19th along its main street, the Rue de Belleville. The remainder lies in the 10th and 11th arrondissements.
Life Is a Long Quiet River is a 1988 French comedy film directed by Étienne Chatiliez. Through the age-old question of nature versus nurture, the film takes a satirical look at society in the industrial north by contrasting the precarious lives of the poor majority with that of the affluent church-going bourgeoisie.
Madame Rosa is a 1977 French drama film directed by Moshé Mizrahi, adapted from the 1975 novel The Life Before Us by Romain Gary. It stars Simone Signoret and Samy Ben-Youb, and tells the story of an elderly Jewish woman and former prostitute in Paris who cares for a number of children, including an adolescent Algerian boy. The film required a transformation in Signoret's appearance as Madame Rosa.
Moshé Mizrahi was an Israeli film director.
Mr. Ibrahim and the Flowers of the Koran is a novel by Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt, originally published in French in 2001. A film adaptation, Monsieur Ibrahim, was released in 2003.
"California" is a 1995 song recorded by the French artist Mylène Farmer. It was the third single from her fourth studio album, Anamorphosée, and was released on 26 March 1996. The song marked her only collaboration with American movie screenwriter and director Abel Ferrara, who directed the very expensive music video in which Farmer appears both as a bourgeois woman and a prostitute. A tribute to California, the song is generally deemed one of Farmer's signature songs and has been performed during most of the singer's subsequent tours. It has met with relative success in France and Belgium, and became one of her hits in Russia.
Molière Award for Best Actress.
Lady L is a 1965 comedy film based on the novel by Romain Gary and directed by Peter Ustinov. Starring Sophia Loren, Paul Newman, David Niven and Cecil Parker, the film focuses on an elderly Corsican lady as she recalls the loves of her life, including an anarchist and an English aristocrat. The ending of the film is very different from the ending of the novel.
Edoardo Ponti is an Italian director. He is the younger son of actress Sophia Loren and producer Carlo Ponti Sr. and the brother of conductor Carlo Ponti Jr.
Roza is a 1987 musical based on the novel The Life Before Us by Romain Gary with music by Gilbert Bécaud and lyrics and book by Julian More.
Roza may refer to:
Lola Dewaere, also known as Lola Céleste Marie Bourdeaux, is a French actor well known for her portrayal of the resourceful and empathetic police commander Raphaëlle Coste in the television series Astrid et Raphaëlle — broadcast in the United States by PBS under the title Astrid — alongside Sara Mortensen, the trilingual actor who portrays Astrid, an autistic and brilliantly innovative criminologist.
The Life Ahead is a 2020 Italian drama film directed by Edoardo Ponti, from a screenplay by Ponti and Ugo Chiti. It is the third screen adaptation of the 1975 novel The Life Before Us by Romain Gary. It stars Sophia Loren, Ibrahima Gueye and Abril Zamora, and is set in Bari, Italy.
Paul Pavlowitch is a French writer, editor and journalist. He trained as a lawyer and has worked in various jobs, including as a teacher, librarian, and translator. A relative of the well-known French author, Romain Gary, Pavlowitch was presented in public through the 1970s in the guise of writer "Emile Ajar", actually a pseudonym of Gary's. Assuming this role for his famous cousin—concealing the true authorship of certain novels of Gary's—embroiled Pavlowitch in controversy when the deception came to light. Pavlowitch's first published work was his 1981 account of the affair, L'homme que l'on croyait. Pavlowitch went on to write novels, having his first published in 1986. Since 2000, he has had four further novels published.
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