Jean-Pierre Martin delivers the true novel of the women and men of the steel industry, drawing on testimonies that are often deeply moving.
Jean-Pierre Martin was a factory worker before going back to school in the late 1970s and becoming the writer he is today.
In this book, he pays tribute to those he knew during those years by giving them a voice. The factory means, first of all, relentless noise, heat, and smells. The risk of a terrible accident leading to mutilation or death. Punishing production rates. And for women, harassment by petty bosses. But it also means solidarity with Polish or Algerian comrades, friendship, and hardships faced together. It means the factory occupations of ’68, the kidnapping of Johnny in ’79, the end of USINOR, “Lorraine, heart of steel”, and so on. Trente Glorieuses that were not glorious for everyone, and that ended with the layoff of tens of thousands of workers.
Alternating personal memories, confidences, and epic poetry, Le Monde réel (The Real World) is a book unlike any other. On the eve of an election year in which the reindustrialization of France will be widely debated, this work has the merit of reminding us, in very concrete terms, what factory work is really like.
