7 /10 1 Votes
Translator Dorothy S. Blair Publisher Lattès Published in English 1993 Page count 189 ISBN 2253097829 | 3.5/5 Goodreads Country France
Lebanon Publication date 1992 Originally published 1992 Original language French Genre Speculative fiction | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Original title Le Premier siècle après Béatrice Similar Works by Amin Maalouf, Other books | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The First Century after Beatrice (French: Le Premier siècle après Béatrice) is a 1992 novel by the French-Lebanese writer Amin Maalouf. The story is set in a near future, where a pharmacological company markets, in the guise of a traditional folk remedy, a drug by which parents can choose to only have sons. The story is told from the first-person point of view of an entomologist. As the disastrous consequences of the skewed male/female birth ratio resulting from the drug multiply, he transitions from pondering and documenting them to organizing a body of scientists who attempt to reckon with the disaster.
Reception
John Tague of The Independent wrote: "Although Maalouf's image of the future is not a happy one, this parable never becomes portentous. His prose achieves an effortless lyricism which is always a pleasure to read - a reason, perhaps, for some little optimism in itself. If someone is going to tell a story about the end of the world, we can glean some comfort from the fact that it is told in a voice as refined and delightful as Amin Maalouf's."