Not all people inhabit the world in the same way.

GONCOURT PRIZE 2019

Paul Hansen has been serving his sentence in Montreal's prison for two years now. He shares a cell with Patrick Orton, a man of one and a half, a beast ready to rip and tear in two anyone who doesn't share his love of Harley Davidsons.

In prison, Paul has time to reflect on his life. From his childhood in Toulouse, with his revolutionary mother and her avant-garde cinema, to the Skagen peninsula in Denmark, the homeland of his pastor father. And from the mines of Thetford Mines, a town buried under asbestos dust, to the Excelsior building in Montreal, where Paul works as a janitor, gardener, handyman, but also where he becomes the comforter of souls and the supporter of the helpless.

When he's not attending to the residents of his building, Paul is soaring through the skies aboard his Indian wife Winona's seaplane over the vast landscapes of Canada. Until one day, a new manager takes over the building. And everything goes downhill.

The story of a life devoted to love, gentleness and care, Not All People Inhabit the World in the Same Way is imbued with a spirit of tolerance and understanding for the weaknesses of people, for the infinite ways in which they can waste their lives, but also by a deep sense of justice ready to rebel against inhumanity.