Jean-Paul Clebert
After the liberation of Paris Jean-Paul Clebert wandered through a catalog of odd jobs while living among the city's down-and-outs, gathering material for Paris insolite. First published in the mid-50s it remains an evocative and highly enjoyable account of life on the fringes.
Les Halles, Belly Of Paris
from Paris Vagabond by Jean-Paul Clebert
with photographs by Patrice Molinard, translated from the French by Donald Nicholson-Smith, out now from NYRB Classics
It is a cliché to say that Les Halles is the belly of Paris, but it is not fully understood that the place really does fill the guts of a whole horde of people, that it is a magnet for all the diurnal and nocturnal bums who come there to glean fragments of nourishment.
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