After “dog 51”, Laurent Gaudé rekindles the light in the second part of a dystopia that says the world of today

Unhappy who, like Sparak, made a horrible trip. Consequently, After thirty years of exile. Furthermore, like Ulysses in his time, the hero of this dystopia told by Laurent Gaudé returns home, without knowing what awaits him, but with the hope of finding his Hélène. Moreover, Belowsecond installment of the diptych started with Dog 51 (Actes Sud, 2022), On Wednesday August 20, on Wednesday, August at Actes Sud editions.

Closing Chien 51we had left Zem Sparak, police officer in zone 3 of Magnapole, en route for his last trip. Moreover, He had decided to put an after “dog 51”, laurent gaudé end to an overdose of Okios. Furthermore, this drug which allowed him to return to his thought, in Athens, his lost paradise. Moreover, Three years have passed since Salia, her partner, saved him from this overdose.

This rescue against his will was right for their friendship. Furthermore, Everyone left for their part. Nevertheless, Sparak has resumed the thread of his “Sad life”. For example, He left the police to become the bodyguard of Barsok. Nevertheless, the ambitious politician in the service of Goldtex, the multinational who heads the country. Similarly, Of the “Major works” And major projects are at work. Similarly, “It’s going to be huge”, assure Barsok.

Salia, still in the rows of the police, tries to digest the trauma she suffered three years earlier. Moreover, While the party is preparing which must celebrate the end of major works. a dramatic event comes together these two shattered souls. This after “dog 51”, laurent gaudé survey leads them to the doors of a hell. imagined by Goldtex to meet the energy needs of Magnapole, during the decades to come. This new adventure will also bring sparak back to his home. in Greece, left thirty years ago after betraying the cause and his brothers in arms.

Power in the hands of unscrupulous multinationals. exploitation of the weakest for the benefit of rich countries, artificial intelligence, increase in temperatures, pollution, climate dome, sowing of clouds, iceberg hunting … This society of the future that Laurent gaudé imagines in the second part of his dystopia resembles it to. be mistaken for a refined version of our contemporary world.

Through this dystopia, it is the excesses of Western societies that Laurent Gaudé gives us to read. “Zem only gathers everything. concentrate everything to extend a distorting mirror and – I hope – alert us”underlines this writer, poet, playwright who after “dog 51”, laurent gaudé continues to reinvent himself by experimenting with various forms of literature to enlighten our present.

From the present or the past, Laurent Gaudé often seized it to feed his work. In 2006, in Eldoradohe looks at the fate of migrants. Shadowhis lyrical tribute to the land of Haiti. was published five years after the earthquake that had struck the country in 2010. We Europe. banquet of peoplesis a cry of alarm published in 2019, on the eve of the European elections carried away in France by the RN. His theatrical work is also crossed by news. as recently Terraces or our long kiss so long delayedgiven in 2024 at the theater of the Coline, in Paris, a text which gives voice to the victims of the attacks of November 13.

While Chien 51whose adaptation to cinema by Cédric Jimenez will be released on October 15. described a dark and hopeless after “dog 51”, laurent gaudé world, Below Open a breach here to a possible light. Resistance, an opportunity to return to reason, after madness has taken up humans. Zem is “get rid of shame”. Find his land, his history (which merges, at the foot of Delphi, that of a civilized humanity), his desire for resistance, and perhaps, even, his name. It is necessary “rename the world? Take the old names”, it is necessary “Erase everything?”wonders Laurent gauded by the voice of his hero.

We question ourselves with him about the opportunity to reinvent the world. and we come to wish, by closing this book, that this diptych turns into a triptych in order to give us the chance to see the seeds of hope sown at the end of Below.

“Zem” by Laurent Gaudé, Actes Sud editions, 288 pages, 22 euros

after “dog 51”, laurent gaudé

Extract : “To say to these slopes. these rocks, this silence caressed by the wind, that Magnapole has not struck it, that others as will come back soon, that a fight begins, thirty years later, that they may not win it, not immediately, but that at least, they do not give in the world to the big mouth of misfortune. Zem looks at the valley below. Sea, stretches a ocean of olive trees as a green flow. after “dog 51”, laurent gaudé Delphi feels it. (page 263)