'I've always wanted to kill the sky, ever since I was a kid. When I was nine, I tried it: that's when I met the good-natured policeman Raymond and ended up in Fountains? There, I had to explain to everyone that my name was Zucchini and nothing else, I had to study and go to bed on cue. But there's a whole load of children and a load of caregivers here, and I'll never forget any of them!' That's how the book's protagonist could briefly describe it. A not very educated boy who finds himself in a modern French orphanage describes in detail all the inhabitants of 'Fountains', their relationships with each other and with the outside world, and most importantly, what's going on in his own head. What is it like to be an orphan that no one needs? And if someone needs you, what changes? This book contains a lot that touches the depths of the soul and helps you remember that childhood dreams should come true. You want to take 'The Autobiography of Zucchini' apart into quotes to show them to all the adults who, for some reason, so quickly forget what it means to be a child.
Gilles Pari (born in 1959) doesn't often publish new texts: one novel every ten years is the usual pace of this former journalist, literary connoisseur and film buff. But each of his books is like a diamond: there is not a single No unnecessary words, no throwaway scenes. Ira Filippova translated 'The Autobiography of Zucchini' into Russian, having given Russian readers books by Jean-Philippe Arroux-Vignaud, Timothée de Fombelles, François Place, and many others. Written in 2002, 'The Autobiography of Zucchini' is well known in France: it has been adapted twice, once as a television film, once as an animated film. Gilles Paris has to fend off countless questions: 'Is Zucchini you?' He invariably replies: 'Zucchini is each of us. At least a little bit.'
For older school age.