| Author: | GauZ' |
| Isbn: | 978-1-529-41443-1 |
| Language: | French |
| Country: | Côte d'Ivoire |
| Genre: | Satire, Literary fiction |
| Publisher: | MacLehose Press |
| Title Orig: | Debout-Payé |
| Translator: | Frank Wynne |
| Release Date: | 2014 |
| English Release Date: | 2022 |
| Pages: | 168 pp |
Standing Heavy is a novel by Ivorian author GauZ'. Originally published in 2014 in French (as Debout-Payé), it was translated into English by Frank Wynne and published in 2022.
It was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2023.[1]
The novel follows a series of undocumented Ivorian immigrants in Paris who find work as security guards. Their constant observations provides a cutting commentary on colonial legacies, Western capitalism and Franco-African history.
The title refers to "all the various professions that require the employee to remain standing in order to earn a pittance.”
Standing Heavy was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2023.
Writing in the Guardian, John Self said "This inventive and very funny debut novel offers a whistle-stop, whizz-bang tour of Franco-African history."[2]
Berny Sèbe, in the Conversation, said Standing Heavy offers a "refreshing and often caustic take on the cultural and economic consequences of an encounter between western consumerism and capitalism and the acute African sense of observation and derision."