On the Isle of Antioch
 | |
| Author | Amin Maalouf |
|---|---|
| Original title | Nos frères inattendus |
| Translator | Natasha Lehrer |
| Language | French |
| Publisher | Éditions Grasset |
Publication date | 20 September 2020 |
| Publication place | France |
Published in English | 5 December 2023 |
| Pages | 336 |
| ISBN | 978-2-246-82641-5 |
On the Isle of Antioch (French: Nos frères inattendus) is a 2020 novel by the French-Lebanese writer Amin Maalouf.
Plot
The novel is told from the perspective of Alec Zander, a cartoonist who has settled on the small island of Antioch off the Atlantic coast of France, where he lives in semi-isolation. When communications temporarily go down and rumours emerge about nuclear war, he comes in contact with a secret society, les amis d'Empédocle (lit. 'the friends of Empedocles'), that functions as a parallel civilisation and has set out to prevent planetary destruction.[1]
Reception
Christophe Henning of La Croix called the book "epic and chilling" and wrote that it contains both criticism and humour.[2] Khadija Khalifé of The French Review wrote that On the Isle of Antioch repeats the message from Maalouf's 2019 book Adrift: How Our World Lost Its Way, where human wisdom is the solution to threatening apocalypse. She wrote that a strength of the book is its combination of optimism and refusal to deny real problems.[1] Kirkus Reviews called it "an elegant portrait of a dying world" and compared Maalouf to Arturo Pérez-Reverte in the way he handles speculative fiction.[3]
References
- ^ a b Khalifé, Khadija (2021). "Maalouf, Amin. Nos frères inattendus. Grasset, 2020. ISBN 978-2-246-82641-5. Pp. 336". The French Review (in French). 95 (1): 252–253. doi:10.1353/tfr.2021.0254.
- ^ Henning, Christophe (18 November 2020). "« Nos frères inattendus » d'Amin Maalouf : seuls au monde". La Croix (in French). Retrieved 19 November 2023.
- ^ "On the Isle of Antioch". Kirkus Reviews. 20 October 2023. Retrieved 19 November 2023.