Continuum: French Science Fiction Short Stories
Classic French science fiction short stories translated into English for the first time.
This unique collection of newly translated short stories offers a taste of classic and contemporary French science fiction to English-language readers. These stories cover a range of fascinating topics including simulated reality, speciesism, ecology, and transhumanism--all while exploring universal themes of belonging, death, and identity. Some of the authors featured in this anthology, like Julia Verlanger, Sylvie Denis, or Jean-Claude Dunyach, have shaped the history of French science fiction after World War II. Curated by Annabelle Dolidon and Tessa Sermet, French language and literature professors who share a love for the genre, these nine stories showcase some of the brilliant mid- to late twentieth and twenty-first century French contributions to science fiction.
Dolidon and Sermet provide illuminating expansions that accompany each tale and fascinating insights into the evolution of French and American science fiction. The discussion opportunities are also a wonderful resource for teachers and students of French literature and French culture as well as English and comparative literature. This anthology is a great opportunity to discover French sci-fi in English translation for fans or readers new to the genre.
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Annabelle Dolidon, PhD, is a professor of French at Portland State University who specializes in post-World War II novels and short stories with a special interest in science fiction. Her past publications include journal articles on these subjects as well as three other textbooks for the French classroom. As a teacher and a scholar, Professor Dolidon enjoys students' and readers' curiosity, critical thinking, and challenging questions--she also enjoys not having all the answers. Life is learning: if you knew everything, what would be the point? That's where science fiction comes in; no answers but a lot of questions to discuss, debate, and explore together or alone.
Tessa Sermet is an assistant professor at Lake Forest College in Illinois. Her research focuses on French science fiction and, more particularly, liminal spaces and spatial, ecological, and bodily transitions in French and French-speaking science fiction and dystopias. She has published three articles about French and Francophone science fiction covering a range of topics including language and translation in feminist science fiction.
French literary scholars Dolidon and Sermet do a stellar job assembling this anthology of nine sci-fi shorts originally published between 1956 and 2021 and appearing in English for the first time. Their introduction provides an insightful overview of French sci-fi as a genre, and places the selections in needed cultural and historical context. The most memorable tale is the oldest, Julia Verlanger's 1956 "The Bubbles," trans. by Sermet. The narrator is a 16-year-old girl in a future where creatures resembling giant iridescent soap bubbles prey on humans, transforming them into "the Others." In response to this deadly threat, the world is in lockdown, and Verlanger brilliantly evokes the resulting claustrophobia, isolation, and loneliness on the way to a gut-punch ending. Roland C. Wagner's 1985 "That Which Is Not Named," trans. by Dolidon, is another standout, inventively imagining an isolated humanoid civilization that has been "unlearning" its history for centuries due to a belief that anything unnamed does not actually exist. The astonishing array of talent, mostly unknown to English readers, makes this a necessary addition to any true sci-fi aficionado's library.
--Publisher's Weekly starred review
