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Joseph Joffo (2 April 1931 – 6 December 2018) was a French author. A noted autobiographer, Joffo was perhaps best known for his memoir ''Un sac de billes'' ('' A Bag of Marbles''), which has been translated into eighteen languages.


Early life

Joffo was born in
Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
in the 18th arrondissement. He left school at 14 with a certificat d'études (a former school leaving certificate, taken at the end of primary education) in his pocket and joined his brothers in the family's barber shop.


Career


''A Bag of Marbles''

His memoir ''Un sac de billes'' (''A Bag of Marbles''), written as a novel, tells the story of Joffo as a young Jewish boy during the
Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...
. When Joffo was ten, his father gave him and his brother five thousand
francs The franc is any of various units of currency. One franc is typically divided into 100 centimes. The name is said to derive from the Latin inscription ''francorum rex'' (King of the Franks) used on early French coins and until the 18th centu ...
each and instructions to flee Nazi-occupied Paris by foot, train and bus, and join their brothers Henri and Albert in
Menton Menton (; , written ''Menton'' in classical norm or ''Mentan'' in Mistralian norm; it, Mentone ) is a commune in the Alpes-Maritimes department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region on the French Riviera, close to the Italian border. Me ...
on the Mediterranean coast, where they would be safe in
Vichy France Vichy France (french: Régime de Vichy; 10 July 1940 – 9 August 1944), officially the French State ('), was the fascist French state headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain during World War II. Officially independent, but with half of its te ...
, unoccupied by the
Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in N ...
. The book "A Bag of Marbles" tells of this journey. Joffo and his twelve-year-old brother Maurice travel south across France by themselves. They are attempting to escape from the grasp of Hitler's SS men as the Nazis infiltrate France. They travel through northern France to the demilitiarised zone in the south. The boys then spend four blissfully safe months in
Menton Menton (; , written ''Menton'' in classical norm or ''Mentan'' in Mistralian norm; it, Mentone ) is a commune in the Alpes-Maritimes department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region on the French Riviera, close to the Italian border. Me ...
on the border of France and Italy with their older brothers Henri and Albert, before having to leave the town for Nice where their parents are waiting. Joffo returns to the city of Paris, shortly after its liberation is announced, in a crowded train. Maurice returns in greater style by road and also takes enough cheese with him to sell for a large profit. They are reunited with their family in the barbershop - although sadly not with their father, who perished in a concentration camp before the end of the war.


Other works

Joffo also wrote ''Anna et son orchestre'' (''Anna and Her Orchestra''), which tells the story of Joseph's mother from the time she was 11 years old to the time she met Joseph Joffo's father in Paris. His novel ''Baby-foot'', published in 1977, follows on from ''Un sac de billes'' and describes his life in Paris following World War II and his discovery of American values. ''La Vieille dame de Djerba'', published in 1984, was written after Joffo met a woman called Liza at a synagogue in
Djerba Djerba (; ar, جربة, Jirba, ; it, Meninge, Girba), also transliterated as Jerba or Jarbah, is a Tunisian island and the largest island of North Africa at , in the Gulf of Gabès, off the coast of Tunisia. It had a population of 139,544 ...
, an island off the coast of
Tunisia ) , image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa , image_map2 = , capital = Tunis , largest_city = capital , ...
. He was amazed to discover, after assuming she was a beggar and offering her money, that she knew the names of his mother and grandmother.


Death

Joffo died on 6 December 2018 at a hospital in
Saint-Laurent-du-Var Saint-Laurent-du-Var (; Occitan: ''Sant Laurenç de Var'', Italian: ''San Lorenzo del Varo'') is a commune in the Alpes-Maritimes department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region on the French Riviera. History The town was founded in the ...
, Alpes-Maritimes from a short-illness at the age of 87.


Other media

On 10 December 1975, ''Un sac de billes'' premiered in France as a motion picture. The film was also released internationally under the title ''A Bag of Marbles''. A second film of ''
Un Sac de Billes ''A Bag of Marbles'' (french: Un sac de billes) is a Second World War autobiographical novel by the French Jewish author Joseph Joffo. It tells the story of his flight, as a small boy, with his brother Maurice to escape from Nazi occupied Franc ...
'' was released in 2017. During filming in Nice, the hanging of a Nazi flag on the Palais des Rois Sardes caused a frenzy between the local population and the crew.


References


External links


Books by Joseph Joffo
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Joffo, Joseph 1931 births 2018 deaths Writers from Paris French memoirists 20th-century French novelists 21st-century French novelists Winners of the Prix Broquette-Gonin (literature) French male novelists 20th-century French male writers 21st-century French male writers French male non-fiction writers French people of Jewish descent Children in the Holocaust