2084: The End of the World
BOUALEM SANSAL, TRANSLATED BY ALISON ANDERSON

In 1949, George Orwell published his dystopian novel 1984, depicting a bleak future with mandatory submission to the tyrannical cult of Big Brother, little or no personal life choice and dire punishments for anyone who breaks the rules. Now Algerian novelist Boualem Sansal, writing in French, goes 100 years further with this story of life in a landscape devastated by three Holy World Wars and subject to a god named Yolah and his faithful delegate, Abi. The date is 2084.

The book won one of France’s most prestigious prizes, the Grand Prix du Roman from the Académie Française, and was a literary sensation in France, yet Sansal’s books are banned in Algeria for his criticisms of the Government. He was himself a government official there until turning novelist aged 50 to write about the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in his homeland.