Amato

My grandfather lived in Casablanca, for sixty years.

War brought him from Italy to Tunisia, he jumped on a train to Casa

as a prisoner, then returned to Morocco despite war’s end, created the

mechanical workshop, still open today.

My father grew up in Casablanca.

He used to go to the Roxy cinema with his Solex, played marbles on rue

Eugène Lendrat, had his bed in the corridor of the dark apartment, ate the

prickly pears that he loved so much on the street corner.

My grandmother died in Casablanca.

Her grave remains the only tangible trace of the passage of my family in this

town.

I wanted to put pictures on exotic names: Roches Noires, the beach hut,

Lyautey school, the mechanical workshop on rue Saint-Savin and the

Boulevard de la Résistance.

The traces of my family in Casablanca signify: in the past, they were there.