Introduction The reality of modern life is such that the latter often offers numerous challenges and problems for a human to cope with. The problem arises: how to survive and not lose one’s identity in the treacherous and full of mistakes world? Moreover, how to succeed in it contrary to existing difficulties? In the current paper, we will consider the example of the young boy, the main character of Azuz Begag’s novel Le Gone du Chaaba (Shantytown Kid) whose story is a triumphant success against all odds. The significance of this semi-autobiographical narration is not only rooted in a marvelous description of one’s personal achievement but in charting a new and uncontested literary space for an emerging beur generation. Historical Background of the Novel The novel was written during the 1980s. This was the period when immigration and the new urban geography of France became a burning issue in the public debate. The earliest drafts of the novel date back to 1981. A complete version of Le Gone du Chaaba appeared in 1983 in a competition arranged for young immigrant writers by a small publisher in Lyon. No winner was identified as the publisher went out of business. The Seuil publishing company published a much-revised version of the manuscript in 1986. By that time the problem of immigration was not discussed in the political circles only but it became a point of debate in the whole French society. New novels, films, media that focused on this problem gained more and more attention from the public. Their work identified the emergence of the new, “Beur” (Arabe) culture wherein Begag became a constituent part (Laronde 35). The Title of the Novel It is important to admit that the original manuscript did not contain any translation of the Algerian Arabic colloquialism shaaba (meaning a patch of spare land containing roughly improvised dwellings) and the Lyonnais slang word gone (meaning kid). The fusion of the two words encouraged the reader to discover the multiethnic context in which the described events took place. In the interview with Corinne Martin and Thierry Paquout Begag explained: Gone is an idiomatic term used in Lyon to denote a child similar to Minot in Marseilles and perhaps titi in Paris. Chaaba is the name of the shantytown where I lived and grew up until the age of ten or eleven … We lived in temporary, makeshift conditions comparable to those of people living in the favelas of Brazil and the barrios in other parts of Latin America. It was the inhabitants of Le Chaaba who gave it that name as the kind of ironic commentary on their poor living conditions: Chaaba is more or less synonymous with the hovel … Calling our living quarters Le Chaaba was a way of saying: “What a slum!” (L’Invite: Azouz Begag 72). Analysis of the Opening Passages and the Novel in General The translation of the novel retains many other Arabic and French colloquialisms and instances of non-standard pronunciation of French words to make a vivid description of the life of North Africans in France. The description starts with the first lines of the novel: Zidouma is doing her washing this morning. She has got up early so that she can have the only water-point in the shanty-town to herself. This is a manual pump drawing up water from the Rhône: the bomba (pump) (Bagag 1) Soon the argument develops between the Zidouma and another woman who wants to use the pump