STANDING HEAVY

This debut by GauZ’—his first English translation, courtesy of Wynne—makes visible the lives of African immigrants in France serving as the nation’s security guards.

In movies, GauZ’ observes, “no security guard has ever been a hero.” Ossiri, Kassoum, and Ferdinand are among those working security in France, all Black immigrants from Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. They are “Standing Heavies,” a term defined as “designat[ing] all the various professions that require the employee to remain standing in order to earn a pittance.” Ossiri watches for shoplifters at Camaïeu, a women’s clothing retailer; Kassoum patrols Les Grands Moulins de Paris, a disused flour mill, to prevent squatters; Ferdinand subcontracts out jobs from his own security company. GauZ’ spends half the book following these characters over several decades and ruminating with brittle humor on the inherited injustices of capitalism and postcolonial French West Africa. One particularly piercing insight describes the bitter irony of Europeans selling cotton, picked by enslaved Africans in America, back to Africa, in the form of “African print fabric” designed by former colonizers. The other half of the book is split into short, semiconnected snippets—a fragmentary collage of ideas, images, and impressions of consumerism which reads as if they were jotted down by a security guard people-watching on the Champs-Élysées. “A Black woman is applying white lipstick. It makes her look as though her lips are infected and filled with pus,” one entry reads. “Here, everything is on sale, even self-esteem,” concludes another. These mishmash sections are interesting but less memorable than the main narrative. This book should perhaps be read in one sitting for maximum effect and digested for long after.

An incisive, uneven, yet meaningful document chronicling the humanity of undocumented workers.