Boualem Sansal - 2084 - A world vége

The time: somewhere in the future, where 2084 is just an uncertain rumor: a mysterious number, an ancient date, perhaps a celestial sign. In the vast empire of Abistan, there is only one God: Yölah, and Abi is his Messenger. Independent thought is forbidden, individual feeling is a sin, and the people of Yölah happily live their everyday lives frozen in the sameness without past or future.
Is it possible, is it worthwhile to doubt, to search for anything in this world, where questions no longer exist and where everything has an answer? The novel's stumbling, but purposeful protagonist nevertheless sets out on a journey to find answers to questions and new questions.
Boualem Sansal is one of the defining voices of contemporary French-language literature. Sometimes ironic, sometimes prophetically gloomy or even philosophically analytical, his vision of an old-new danger takes the possible consequences of extreme religious radicalism to almost absurd extremes.
Like Orwell's novel, Sansal's work is a passionate warning: a dystopia that feeds on the horrors that seem to already be happening in some parts of the world.
Religion is the home of true faith and an excuse for blind faith. However, blind faith no longer needs an excuse: it simply exists. And where there is blind faith - fueled by any ideology - there everything else ceases.
If we let it.
Boualem Sansal, one of the most important representatives of contemporary French-language literature, was born in an Algerian village, Theniet El Had, in 1949.
After obtaining his engineering qualification and a doctorate in economics, he was active in many fields: he worked in education, was a consultant and company manager, and for a while held a high position in the Algerian public administration, from which he had to leave in 2003 due to his writings that were unpopular with the authorities. He still lives in Algeria, where his novels and other writings are censored, and he himself regularly receives threats and personal attacks.
His books are all the more popular in Europe, not least in France and Germany. He has received numerous literary awards and honors. Nominated for the Goncourt, Renaudot, Femina, Flore and Médicis prizes, he won the French Academy Novel Prize in 2015 for his novel 2084.
?It was a significant event, there hadn't been a witch trial for a very long time, no one even hoped that one would ever be held, even though religion becomes impoverished and loses its vitality if no one attacks it in the back. Rather than in the serene atmosphere of religious education, he gains strength again in the stadium and on the battlefield.?