
Writing
The poet François (known as Franck) Venaille was born in the working-class 11th arrondissement of Paris. He received a Catholic upbringing and joined the Communist Party at a very young age following his military service in Algeria. Papiers d'identité, his first book published in 1966, looks back on this period, which he would also explore in Hourra les morts! (Obsidiane, 2003) and in L'Enfant rouge, published by Mercure de France shortly after his death in 2018.

When his father dies a young man has the choice to continue the farmwork of his old man who suffered because of the hard labour and all the regulations.

Pierre, a young man of Brussels, has lost his job. Unbeknowst to Barbara, the woman he lives with, he has become a pickpocket to survive. He works in partnership with a young Tunisian immigrant he meets every Sunday in an abandoned bus where they share the loot of the week. One day, Pierre finds his accomplice dead in their hiding place. Pierre suddenly realizes that he does not know much about his dead friend. Taking possession of his identity papers, Pierre decides to go to Tunisia to find out who his friend actually was.

