The Life Ahead (by Romain Gary)

The seventh episode features a comparison between the Liceo Scientifico "Antonio Rosmini" of Rovereto and the Liceo Scientifico "Benedetti-Tommaseo" of Venice on a highly successful novel: "The Life Ahead" by the French writer of Lithuanian origin Romain Gary. Published in 1975, the book won the most important French literary prize in the same year: the Goncourt. Set in the immediate post-war period, in the multi-ethnic Parisian suburb of Belleville, Romain Gary's novel tells the story of Momo, a 10-year-old Arab boy, and Madame Rose, an elderly Jewish ex-prostitute who miraculously escaped the Holocaust, to whom the child was entrusted. Alongside them is a whole crowd of "miserables", outcasts of society. Despite the harshness, crude and even violent tones of the story, the book has moments of humor and authentic poetry.