I have already reviewed another book by this author but this is by far his best work.

It won him the Prix Goncourt and was then made into a film starring Simone Signoret.

It tells the story of Momo' (Mohamed), a boy of indeterminate origin, a Muslim as his name indicates, who has been left under the protection of Madame Rosa, a Jew who had been in Nazi  concentration camps during the war, and who had then become a prostitute in a Parisian suburb.

When the book begins, Momo' is three and Madame is very fat and can hardly climb the stairs to her flat.

They are thus forced to rely on each other. Momo', the Arab boy brought up by a former Jewish prostitute, is one of the most unforgettable figures of minors in modern literature, endearing and precautiously mature as Gavroche.

Momo' does not need a family or a school to understand about life, to discover the squalor of his daily existence, the misery and desolation of his life with Madame Rosa.

A pathetic narrator of his adventure, Momo' with simple words speaks about his life, his days as a vagabond, his discoveries, his weaknesses, his ingenious tricks and his deepest fears.

It is as if in the desert of crude misery and vulgarity that surrounds him a miracle arises, that of his precautious wisdom, his delicate love.

From the labyrinth of his meagre resources the miracle appears of his direct and cruel reality, his traumatic discovery of a world that our prejudices and our culture have so far helped hide.

Naïve poetry and sombre reality live together on the same page with the same naturalness with which Momo' succeeds to bring together with his black humour.