Begag has written approximately 20 literary books for adults and children, as well as songs. Furthermore, he is the scriptwriter of the French movie
Camping à la ferme ("Camping at the farm"), where he exposed his vision of "three levels of riches"
multiculturalism in today's French society : the advantages of its relatively new multiethnicity due to a new non-European immigration mixed with the basis of its historical and natural multiculturality whether coming from the riches of its several regional cultures and languages or from the successful integration of previous waves of European immigration during its history. Begag's best known literary work (he has published many novels often inspired by his childhood) is the autobiographical novel
Le Gone du Chaâba, published in 1986 by
Éditions du Seuil. The title itself is a clever play on one of his regional language's words. 'Gone' is a term for 'kid' or 'lad' in the
Lyonnais dialect of
Arpitan used in his native region and city, while 'Chaâba' is an Arabic word, used in the book as the name of a shantytown in Sétif, Algeria. Both Azouz Begag and the protagonist of the novel grew up in a
shanty town outside Lyon, almost entirely inhabited by Algerian or Kabyle immigrant workers. The language and culture were predominantly a mix of Algerian Arabic, Kabyle Tamazigh and Arpitan. The problems of the ghetto-like environments established by and for guest workers in France after WWII, of the individual children of these ghettos who are French Citizens by dint of being born in France and even often from French parents and for whom 'breaking out' is both very difficult and statistically improbable, and Azouz Begag's own success in managing being part of the mainstream of French culture without having to forget any part of his heritage but rather by accumulating all cultural influences, are at the heart of the novel. == Social and political works ==